


Pirates, Nerds, and Other Madness

by OriginalWeird



Category: N.E.R.D.S. - Michael Buckley
Genre: The Goonies AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalWeird/pseuds/OriginalWeird
Summary: They might be running out of time and ideas. But they've found a map, and they can spare enough time for at least one more adventure...
Kudos: 3





	Pirates, Nerds, and Other Madness

It was too early for anything, really.

Too early to be awake, too early to be eating or running or thinking at all. Too early to be waiting outside a prison for his stupid brother to hurry up and just steal a guard's uniform already.

The man was older than he was, honestly. He should have been better at this. More experienced. But here Simon was, tapping the steering wheel on the stolen getaway car he and Mom had hotwired in a crummy apartment building at an ungodly hour. Because Albert the moron couldn't knock a man out properly. He'd ended up with the crummiest brothers imaginable. It was lucky for Mom that she had him to balance them out. 

She was touching up her eighteenth coat of lipstick in the passenger seat, checking the watch he'd gotten…stolen…her for Christmas every half-minute. He'd been lucky, age twelve, to have robbed the same bank as her and his brother, to have been taken under her wing and adopted by her, taken out of the clutches of his stupid biological parents. They'd wanted to send him to a looney bin. Told him he was disturbed. That there was something wrong with him. Mom understood. She was kind and she was cruel. She was the only good thing about this godforsaken family. 

At last, an alarm started going off. People were yelling. His brother came racing out a gate, firing a gun behind himself. 'I'm not cut out for a life of crime', huh? Albert threw himself into the backseat. Simon hit the gas so hard the wheels started screaming. Mom and Albert were busy firing at the police cars that chased their car, Simon too busy weaving them across front lawns, to notice a scrawny kid walking from to his friend's house. 

But the kid sure saw them.

Adventure always seemed right off the horizon, when you were on the Goon Docks.

That was one of the reasons the group of kids loved living there so much. It was easy to think you could do something extraordinary when you looked out at that horizon, easy to imagine the pirates running between the rocks, like everyone said they used to do.

It was easy to dream of buried treasure when you walked up to the museum Jackson's mom used to work at, before, and gazed at all the maps and the swords and everything. And so they did. 

They all did. 

That was the other reason they liked it so much-they all lived on the same street, and visiting each other was easy as could be. As was forming their club. No, not a club, a sort of society, an organisation, something. 

Forming all the missions and plots and schemes they hatched was easy enough, too. 

It wasn't as if any of them were really well off, either, and their parents liked living there because of how cheap the houses were. 

That was the downside. 

A bigshot developer closed in. Their houses, their home, would be perfect for his new country club. Before any of them knew what was happening, they were being kicked out, having to move all over the state. So far from their friends. So far from everything they knew. 

So far from the pirates, and the treasure, and the hopes and dreams and games. 

Their schemes grew more desperate. They had to find something, anything, that would let them stay right where they were. But time ran out. It was the night before Jackson Jones, his brother and his dad were officially signed out of their own home, and everyone was coming over one last time. 

That's where it all started, really.

Jackson Jones was staring at the TV. It was playing the news-something about a prison break. Didn't matter. Why would it matter?

Chaz, in the other seat, was screwing with a set of springs, or something, stolen straight from their dad's old workout stuff, sweating like all hell, and 'training'. Chaz did wrestling and football, but anyone could tell you the training was more for the benefit of Tanisha Dewey then either of those things. Jackson sure could.

There was the sort of bang that suggested someone was pounding on the back door. The sort of loud, angry bang that suggested whoever was banging on it would probably kick the door in if Jackson didn't drag himself off the couch and open it. He rolled over, almost crashing into the coffee table, pulled himself up and trudged through the crowed hallway. Everything was everywhere. No-one in their family was very good at packing, but Jackson couldn't for the life of him imagine what a tapestry was doing leaning on the hall-stand. He'd never seen the thing before.

When he flung open the door, the two girls who had been leaning on it fell straight over and into the hall. 

"Thanks a lot, Mouth."

"Yeah, yeah."

Matilda Choi stuck her tongue out at him as he pulled her and Ruby Peet up. Everyone had been calling Jackson 'Mouth' since kindergarten, because he kept getting in trouble for 'excessive chatting'. He liked to talk. So what? The nickname had only become more fitting over the summer, when Jackson had gotten the worst, most hideously ugly, set of braces known to man. Mouth he was, and Mouth he'd stay. Until all the people calling him Mouth were gone. Which was coming up rather fast, now he thought about it…no! Not thinking about…yeah. 

"Why do you look so gloomy, guys? C'mon! This is the last evening we'll be The Nerds, remember? So we gotta get a whole bunch of plotting done. Maybe rob a bank, help me stay. You want soda, Dad bought a whole bunch-"

He was steering them through the house, into the kitchen, as he spoke. 

"Calm down. We're allowed to be sad."

Ruby was too reasonable. They weren't allowed to be sad. He started to launch into one of his almost-famous monologues, probably something completely exaggerated that touched on pirates at least once, when something hit the front window.

A candy bar slid down the windowpane, and the three of them went out on the porch to stare at Julio Escala, who was shaking the gate aggressively.

"Hey, guys!"

"Hey, Chunk!"

Julio Escala was, in fact, so skinny he looked like a twig. He ate enough candy and sugar and pastries that he probably should have looked like a hot air balloon, but he didn't, which gave the nickname they usually used brought with it a good deal of irony.

"Guys! You gotta let me in, I just saw the most awesome thing, you aren't gonna believe it-"

"Sure."

Jackson grinned at the boy at the gate.

"But you missed."

"Couldn't you just open the gate? Just once?"

Matilda, now eating the candy bar that had hit the window, shook her head fiercely. 

"You know the rules!"

A second candy bar got thrown. Again, it missed the target, an old Frisbee they'd painted a bullseye on, and hit the window past it. Ruby got this one, but passed it to Jackson after she'd read through the ingredients. Ruby was allergic to everything.

Julio threw a third candy bar, which bounced right off the centre off the target with a satisfying 'thwack'. The Frisbee bent straight over backwards. The string hanging off it went tight, which made the tennis ball fall onto the rabbit's cage, which made their rabbit scurry around, which made the cage drop just a little lower, which made the rest of the string go tight, which pulled the gate open.

It had taken three afternoons of fiddling and fidgeting, but they were all proud of the gadget, and made sure it got used whenever someone came over. Julio just didn't like wasting candy bars trying to hit the target. 

He ran straight up to the rest of them now, only tripping over about twice.

"Seriously, I saw the coolest thing-this car drove by, and there were all the police cars with it, and it was just riddled with bullet holes-"

"Really? Where'd you get the plot for that one, cartoons?"

"No, I swear I saw it-"

"Just like that time you saw Michael Jackson at the drive-through?"

Chaz was leaning out of his chair, still using the springs, in order to join the conversation. Julio fake-laughed.

"Well, that never happened, fine, but I really did see the car, honestly-"

On the next-door roof, Duncan Dewey looked dramatically over the landscape. Between the houses, extra-strong clothesline he'd shelled out a full month's worth of pocket money for, and then had tested to make sure it could support his weight. His zip line was probably unnecessary, but he liked it, and he was pretty sure he looked cool when he used it, so whatever.

"HEY!"

There was crashing in Jackson's house. They knew he was coming. So he pushed off. 

In the living room of the house next door, Chaz yelled.

"THE SCREEN DOOR!"

All the kids rushed to open it at once. They didn't get the screen door before Duncan crashed into it and pulled it out of the frame. They did, however, make a decent landing pad when they fell over under him.

"Data, getoff!"

Data was so-called because of his inventions. It was no secret that the kid was something of a genius, brilliant with gadgets and gizmos and other random, wacky creations. Some of them were useful, some of them were stupid. It was good to have variety. 

Duncan crawled off them all, only accidently stabbing about two people with his elbows. 

"Sorry-sorry-sorry-"

Chaz leaned cautiously over to look at them.

"Is everybody okay?"

"Yeah!"

"Mostly."

"Yes."

Chaz nodded, sitting up straight again. He then leaned over, as if he'd just remembered something, as if it meant almost nothing.

"And your sister is-?"

"Tanisha and Mindy are getting driven someplace by Brett."

Chaz cursed under his breath. Jackson snickered.

"Could be you, if you didn't fail your driving test!"

"Shut up, Mouth!"

Jackson ducked before Chaz could hit him, laughing. Conversations that followed almost exactly the same lines were common and prevalent. No-one batted an eye. In fact, it was the sort of familiar conversation that meant everyone was perfectly comfortable draping themselves over the furniture like they were planning on becoming part of the faded-floral patterns on the couch, the reason they had no problem swinging the fridge door open and then sticking the entire top halves of their bodies among the milk and jam to pull out the soda and the chocolate. It was an almost disconcertingly familiar scene. 

It was sometimes in someone else's living room, to be fair, but it was typically this one. The person in charge of watching them when they were at Jackson's place (That would be Chaz) was the least likely to actually punish them for their plans, schemes and missions. Most current missions had revolved around making a lot of money as fast as possible so no-one would have to go anywhere, but their plans just kept falling through. 

Stupid plans.

Ruby Peet couldn't imagine why her mouth was getting dry, couldn't for the life of her figure out why just looking at all her friends sinking into their usual comfortable silence would make her anything but happy.

Because it could be the last time they were all together like this.

The foreboding thought had to get out of her mind, and it had to do so now. Maybe that was the reason she opened her mouth and blurted out a statement she would soon regret.

"So, Mouth. What's your dad gonna do with all the museum stuff in your attic?"

Ruby felt bad the moment she said it, as both Jones brothers did the uncomfortably neutral thing they always did when anything to do with their mother got brought up. It was a weird face, and seeing it in double probably would have made anyone who didn't know about the expression start laughing. 

Nobody present laughed.

"Uh."

Mouth himself couldn't really think of what to say. 

"I guess…I guess give it back to the museum?"

Matilda's eyes lit up and she took a puff of her inhaler, so excited, so hyped up on the too-sugary drinks Mr. Jones bought. 

"We could…we should go check it! See if there's anything worth something!"

Before either Jones brother could launch into their dad's tried-and-true lecture about the attic being Off Limits and Not For Children, the Nerds were stampeding up the stairs like they were being chased.

Which they were, really. By a pair of brothers who knew how much trouble they'd be in if something that belonged to their mom got damaged. But the sentiment was there. 

Before anyone or anything could be stopped, an attic was being rather aggressively explored. 

Chaz shrugged and sat himself down with one of the many books that crowded the floor, shelves, and boxes. Jackson dashed around trying to get people to stop. 

"Oh, c'mon Mat, it doesn't matter that the painting already had a hole in it, stop putting your head through-Okay, sure, Data, it's cool but you can't take it apart to figure out how it works, please-CHUNK DON'T LICK THAT-"

Jackson Jones tripped as he attempted to lunge at Julio, and ended up crashing backwards and falling into a painting. Said painting crashed onto the floor, glass shattering everywhere. 

"What did you do, Mouth."

Chaz wasn't asking a question, he was making a threat. Jackson gulped. Bad, bad, bad. He scrambled up, half-falling over more than once.

"Well, I'm sure it can't be too bad, after all, it is only…"

Chaz had picked up the frame and tipped the glass aside, and was now checking the damage.

"A map."

"What?"

"It's a map, Mouth. You found a map."

"I did?"

Chaz didn't bother responding, instead holding out the map so Jackson could see it. He couldn't. He wasn't tall enough. He tugged his brother down instead, which made Chaz snicker at him but was nonetheless worth it, because this was definitely…

"A pirate's treasure map!"

The rest of his friends were clustering around them. Chaz scoffed at him.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah! Look, it says it's from 1632!"

Mat, who was jumping repeatedly and only getting glimpses of the map, was the only one who bothered to respond to that.

"Is that a year, then?"

"I guess so…it looks like here. Like that big map of the coastline you've got on your wall, Data."

Chaz was still holding the map, and could see it considerably better than everyone else could. He was the first one to notice the tiny words scrawled along the bottom of the paper.

"What's that? That stuff right there…that's not English."

"That's Spanish!"

Julio was on his tiptoes to see the writing, but he could see it. Chaz squinted at the words and momentarily regretted taking Japanese instead of Spanish, because now he couldn't tell if Chunk was making up another story. Matilda stopped jumping in order to grab her inhaler. The puffing noise was almost louder than Chaz's reply. 

"Yeah? Can you translate it? What does it say?"

"Uh…You…intruders…be careful. Crushing death…and soaked grief. With blood, from the…burglar thief."

Everyone turned to stare at Chunk. 

"It's translated from Spanish. Were you expecting it to rhyme or something?"

Jackson screwed up his nose, staring at the words.

"I guess so."

Chaz handed the map off to Jackson.

"This map's old news, you guys. Everyone and their grandfather went looking for that guy's treasure when they were our age. What's his name, again? Uh, One…One-Eyed…One-Eyed Willy!"

"Yeah! Yeah, yeah! I got told so many stories…Uh, he was this real famous pirate, and he sailed here, with this great treasure…jewels, and gold…"

"How much, Mouth?"

"Enough to fill up a ship, Chunk. And this King, this King sent a whole fleet of ships, right after One-Eyed Willy. There was a battle-a real huge battle, with cannons, and with guns, and swords, and he had to flee, because there were too many of them. He got trapped in a cave, and the ships shot the rocks so they fell down, and then his ship got trapped!"

"Yeah, right. He's not real, he's just a fairytale that…"

There was a silence the group knew meant Mrs. Jones.

"…made up so you'd go to sleep."

"No, he's not! He's real! He came here, to the goon docks, and he hid his treasure somewhere here."

Ruby's eyes lit up and she jumped on the idea.

"That's how we'll keep our houses! The treasure!"

Jackson was, clearly, not finished.

"But…but we couldn't. See, while One-Eyed Willy and his men were trapped in the cave, they set traps. So no-one would be able to get to his treasure."

Matilda was still slightly out of breath and too enthusiastic.

"So? We're The Nerds, and we can do anything, and we can fight a bunch of traps!"

Duncan, sitting down behind the rest of his friends, was reading a framed newspaper article. He piped up, somewhat reluctantly. 

"Uh, guys, you ever heard of…Thomas Brand?"

Duncan got blank stares.

"It says…missing while pursuing local legend. It says he looked for years and years, and he said he was getting closer and closer. It says…it says he couldn't find it."

The words hung unspoken. If he couldn't find it…why would they be able to do it?

"But…but what if?"

Ruby seemed reluctant to give up.

"What if this map can lead us to One-Eyed Willy's riches? What if we really can find them? Then we won't have to leave!"

Jackson stared at the map for another second.

"Maybe."

"Aw, come on, we've gotta at least try!"

The doorbell rang. It was muffled, but they all heard it, and they all set off like an odd parade to get it. Jackson handed the map to Ruby, who looked down at it before she started trailing after her friends.

Chaz went up to the door first. He was one of the two people who actually lived there, and he was the oldest. The door-answering responsibilities were his automatically. 

Brett Bealer Sr. smiled through the screen, his umbrella obscuring his stupid hat. There was another man with him, but The Nerds didn't know who he was. Jackson, sufficiently hidden behind the rest of his friends, groaned. Chaz attempted to fake-smile, but it turned out a grimace.

"Can we help you, sir?"

"Hello, little guys."

The group, collectively, glowered at the man.

"I'm Mr Bealer-Brett's father."

Matilda piped up, enthusiastic.

"We know Brett. He's a real jerk."

Chaz, playing the collective big brother, gestured that Matilda should shut up by covering her mouth with his hand. She proved that she was not above biting it by doing so.

"My dad's not home right now, Sir."

"And your mother?"

Brett Bealer, Sr. knew full well-! Chaz, to his credit, did not punch the man. He came exceptionally close. 

"She's…not available."

Because she's bloody dead. Stupid.

"Oh, well-Papers, Bill."

The man next to Mr Bealer, who was evidentially named Bill, handed over a small stack of papers. Chaz took them.

"Give those to your father to sign. He'll have to get those to me by tomorrow morning."

"…Thank you."

"Oh, no, thank you, kid."

Chaz came exceptionally close to slamming the door in the man's face. Jackson frowned at the papers.

"What is all that stuff?"

"It's…dad's business."

From the backyard, the dog began to go absolutely ballistic for no apparent reason. 

"Yeah, but what is it?"

"Dad's stuff, I told you."

None of The Nerds were satisfied with this answer. They were clustered on the porch, staring reproachfully as Mr. Bealer's car drove away.

"He's a snob."

"I don't disagree, Mouth, but you'd better not say that one to his face."

Jackson looked at his brother as if he had intentions to do exactly that.

"I think I might need more chocolate. To cheer me up."

Julio went off in search of said chocolate. He was followed by most of the other Nerds.

Jackson stared at where the car had been. Chaz slung an arm around his brother's shoulder and half-dragged him inside.

"C'mon, Mouth, Dad'll kill me if you catch a damn cold."

Now a good distance away, a man named Bill turned to a man named Brett.

"You seem pretty sure of yourself."

"Trust me, the foreclosure is a definite."

Julio pulled his torso out of the Jones's refrigerator, now clutching a can of whipped cream.

"I…I don't think I've ever been this sad."

He paused to squirt the whipped cream directly into his mouth.

"It's…it's just so-"

"Stop, you're spraying whipped cream all over the couch."

Ruby looked at him reproachfully. She then looked back at the map spread over her knees.

"I just wish I could find One-Eyed Willy's treasure. I'd…I'd give it all to my mom and dad so they could pay all the bills and stuff. So I could stay here."

Jackson was staring at the ceiling. He was also sitting in the kitchen sink.

"Me too. Then maybe dad could get some sleep instead of figuring out how he's going to keep us here."

"Me three."

Matilda was upside-down and in danger of falling over onto Duncan, who was sitting next to her and fiddling with another one of his inventions.

"Me four."

Julio tapped one of Matilda's feet as he spoke. It was enough. Once she'd rolled onto the ground, she glared at him. It was a decently intimidating glare. Chaz sat down in his chair again and retrieved his springs.

"Forget it. No more adventures. I'm not getting grounded. I've got a date on Friday."

Both Duncan and Jackson screwed up their faces. Their older siblings were gross.

"You've got a date on Friday if you ever manage to actually ask Tanisha out."

"Shut it, Mouth."

Chaz turned his full attention to the springs. The Nerds, at Ruby's beckon, formed a huddle over by the kitchen sink. Chaz did not notice this. Maybe a minute later, Duncan piped up, sounding as curious as you can imagine.

"Hey, Chaz, how far can you stretch that thing?"

"Well, it's not that hard, so…"

Chaz stretched the springs as far as his arms would let him.

"GO!"

On Ruby's command, Matilda and Julio lunged forward and wrapped the springs around him. It took only a minute to pin Chaz into the chair. A small group of kids was racing out the door, then speeding down the street on their bikes, before Chaz could even really comprehend what had happened. That didn't stop him from yelling after them.

"MOUTH, WHEN YOU GET BACK, I'M GOING TO HIT YOU SO HARD BY THE TIME YOU WAKE UP, YOUR CLOTHES WILL BE OUT OF STYLE!"

Jackson couldn't really hear his brother. He was following Ruby, who was following the map.

Chaz had to get free. His dad wouldn't be back for hours. He couldn't get grounded because his brother and his brother's friends had made a run for it. 

How could he do this?

A good deal of extremely uncomfortable squishing, wiggling, and falling, Chaz had slid his way down to the floor. He'd hurt his face. He rubbed his cheek as he grabbed his jacket, then his bike. It was still raining, just lightly, as Chaz Jones rode down the street after his brother.

Ruby looked up from the map when they hit the edge of town.

"Look. We're going the right way. Those big rocks? Out there? Right here."

Matilda peered sceptically over her shoulder. 

"They look like blobs to me."

"We're going the right way."

Jackson pushed ahead, entirely ignoring the fact he didn't know where it was he was headed.

"Then let's keep going!"

Maybe ten minutes behind them, a shiny red convertible sped along. Tanisha Dewey, in the passenger seat, felt somewhat uncomfortable. Maybe it had something to do with her friend being more or less shoved into the back of the car-Mindy Beauchamp was, objectively, beautiful, and went out of her way to avoid this. Usually by doing things like cutting all her hair off with sewing scissors, wearing old fishing overalls that might just have been her dad's, and opting for glasses over contacts. Some people looked very good with glasses. Mindy was not one of those people. Brett Bealer (Jr.) hadn't said two words to Mindy as he drove. He was now bragging about his golf records to Tanisha. And possibly angling the mirror less towards the road and more towards her, but she hadn't actually caught him doing so yet. Mindy interjected something Brett was saying about his all-time best score to point out the scenery.

"Oh, there's Chaz."

Brett snickered. Chaz was a year older than him, but he was richer than Chaz, so he felt justified.

"Like the bike."

Chaz's bike wasn't flashy. It was old. It had stickers he'd put on when he was considerably younger. Whatever. It worked fine. 

"What is he doing?"

As far as Tanisha was aware, Chaz didn't have plans today. Or if he did, he hadn't told her about them. He wasn't…meeting someone, was he?

"No wonder he can't get a license."

Mindy was laughing. Like a hyena, a little madly, leaning out the side of the car. Chaz saw them coming. He attempted to speed up, but considering he was on his bike, it made no difference. 

"Can we give you a ride somewhere?"

Tanisha sounded so genuine. Brett was snickering at him. Mindy was smirking.

"No. I'm-I'm alright."

Brett had an evil glint in his eye. 

"Oh, I insist. We'll give you a ride."

Before Chaz could pull away from the car, Brett caught his wrist. The younger boy pinned said wrist to the side of his car and floored it. Tanisha screamed. 

Chaz was barely keeping control of his bike, completely unable to get his hand loose, speeding along too fast. Mindy was yelling too now, leaning into the front, trying to help Tanisha pry Chaz's wrist loose. The ground raced past. Too fast. Too fast. 

"YOU'RE GONNA KILL HIM!"

Mindy's voice sounded quiet, even though she was screaming. 

"LET. HIM. GO!"

"YEAH? I'LL LET HIM GO!"

Brett dropped Chaz's hand as he sped around a corner. 

Chaz couldn't stop. 

He was flung straight over the handlebars. Screaming and laughing became quieter as the car sped out of sight. 

Huh. His chin was bleeding.

"This better be it, Ruby."

"Almost there, Chunk."

The group were struggling up a hill. They'd had to start walking their bikes about halfway up, and they'd unanimously agreed that if there wasn't something real impressive on the other side, they were giving up and going home. Ruby reached the top first and pulled the map out of her pocket. 

"There! Look! Everything lines right up. The treasure's near the restaurant!"

Julio, out of breath, didn't bother checking.

"If…you…you say so."

"I'm going to need you to translate again. I don't speak Spanish."

"Alright, alright, alright. Uh…Ten times ten."

Matilda had caught up with them now.

"What?"

"That's what it says! Hold on!"

Duncan whispered to himself.

"Hundred."

"Long…long feet to north."

Jackson set off forward.

"Where are you going?"

"To the north, Ruby, duh."

"That's…which was is north? It's not just forward, Mouth, get back."

Duncan unclipped a compass from his belt and checked.

"That way!"

"Alright, Data!"

The group started walking, counting under their breaths. They'd gotten to sixty, and were behind a few rocks, when a car pulled up and two people went inside the restaurant they'd realised they were walking towards.

"Another forty will put us inside the restaurant, easy."

"You sure, Mat?"

"I'm…I'm not sure, guys."

"Oh, c'mon, Chunk!"

"Yeah, think about the treasure!"

"I think…I think that's a summer place, what's it doing open in the fall?"

The summer place restaurant hadn't been painted within The Nerd's lifetime. It was covered in dust, falling apart, and looked at least a little haunted. The light rain and grey skies weren't helping. Not even a little bit. 

"I'm telling you, it's nothing to be worried about. There's already two customers inside, see?"

Duncan was, in fact, pointing at two silhouettes in the window. Whether the figures were customers or not was a different matter entirely.

"Yeah, but what if they're…criminals or something?"

Matilda leaned forward, unbalancing herself and almost falling off her bike, in order to punch Julio in the shoulder.

"Did you see them? What sort of criminals would be dressed like that? One of them was dressed like you!"

Julio looked, somewhat offended, at his Hawaiian shirt. It was his favourite, and yes, everything he was wearing was second-hand and his grandmother had made him change three times before telling him she gave up, but he liked his Hawaiian shirt and his bright red jacket and his old plaid pants. He started to protest, but then realised everyone else was still counting their steps and walking towards the restaurant, so he scrambled after them.

There were two bangs.

They sounded a lot like…

"Ruby! Gunshots! Ruby, those sounded like gunshots! Someone's going to try to kill us!"

Ruby looked at the map. Treasure. Treasure beyond their wildest dreams, treasure she'd be able to give to her parents, treasure that would let her stay in the house she'd lived in her whole life. It didn't matter what she'd thought she'd heard. Those sounds couldn't be gunshots.

"No. Chunk, someone probably just dropped a pot."

The group, as a whole, had frozen when they'd heard the bangs. They now attempted to agree with her, as best they could.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, just dropped a pot."

Julio glanced back at the building. 

"Are…are you sure?"

Ruby nodded and kept counting her paces. Almost there.

Inside the restaurant, a man named Albert was dragging a now-deceased FBI agent into the kitchen. He was complaining about it. Oh, he'd never wanted to be the bad guy. Not really. He had-somewhat accidently-been raised on comic books, but he swore up, down, left, right, and sideways that he'd always wanted to be the hero. His mother didn't believe him. How come he'd always wanted to be the villains for Halloween?

Jackson Jones pressed his face right up the glass. It was so dirty it left a grey-brown mark on his cheek. He could barely make out the movements of the people inside.

"What's that?"

Ruby looked through the window, next to him. Julio stood on his tiptoes, just able to peer in the very bottom of the frame. Both Matilda and Duncan found themselves to be short. She took a puff of her inhaler, before clambering up his back, using his backpack as a foothold, then sitting on his shoulders in order to see. This was by no means a rare occurrence. He'd designed a step on his bag for this exact purpose. She lifted him up half the time too. They took turns. 

There were a lot of things that needed looking at that were just too high.

As such, Matilda ended up with the best vantage point and was able to report back-

"Looks like the cook is carrying something into the kitchen. It's pretty big…probably food, or trash, or something."

Duncan shifted her slightly.

"Don't let the cook see us, then."

Julio couldn't see anything. Not really. He was bored of spying on some guy taking out the trash. Unless the cook was offering them something, like food, he was going to have to go find some food himself. 

He wandered off. 

He found a garage, and, following an excellent line of reasoning, found himself looking at a car.

A car that bore remarkable resemblance to one he'd seen that very morning, right down to the…

"BULLET HOLES!"

Duncan stumbled. Matilda yelped. She didn't fall, but the overall ruckus had increased tenfold. One of the figures in the window spun. 

"There's kids out there."

Simon stared at his mother, then at the window. 

"You think they saw?"

"Well, let's ask 'em what they're doing here. Find out."

Mrs. Nesbitt swung open the front door. The children, collectively, jolted, and Matilda slid backwards to the ground. 

"How long have you kids been at that window?"

Jackson piped up, trying to make a joke of the whole thing.

"Long…long enough to see you need about four hundred roach motels in this place."

Mrs. Nesbitt's smile was forced. 

"Well, did any of you want anything?"

The group stared at her, struck dumb.

"That is why you're here? Hungry, thirsty…"

Ruby jumped on the excuse.

"Yep! Yep, we all just wanted a glass of water."

The group nodded. Frantic. Yes, water. That's all. Jackson started talking.

"No! I want the Veal Scallopine…"

Someone punched him in the shoulder. Probably Matilda. He didn't check.

"And I want the Fettuccini Alfredo. And a bottle of red wine, 1981…"

Mrs. Nesbitt was no longer smiling. She grabbed him by the ear and pulled him inside the restaurant. The rest of The Nerds followed like terrified ducklings. It was unbelievably dusty. Matilda took another puff of her inhaler.

Mrs. Nesbitt pulled a knife out of her sleeve, put Jackson in a headlock, and pushed his cheeks together so his tongue was sticking out of his mouth. She raised the knife like she was going to cut the boy's out of his mouth.

"THE ONLY THING WE SERVE HERE IS TONGUE!"

A perfectly timed crack of thunder lit up the dim room. 

"You boys…like…tongue?"

The knife was getting closer with every word. Despite the fact she'd technically been addressing the boys, the entire group started protesting. No, they didn't, they didn't. Mrs. Nesbitt let Jackson go.

"Is that all?"

Jackson started to speak again. He was punched. Ruby covered his mouth with her hand.

"THEN SIT. DOWN!"

Mrs. Nesbitt stormed into the kitchen as The Nerds clustered around one of the filthy tables. Julio fell over while trying to pull out his chair. Ruby, ever the natural leader, took charge again.

"Everyone alright? Chunk, you okay?"

Julio scrambled into his seat, almost knocking over Duncan's chair in the process. 

"No! No, I'm not okay! You guys, these people…they…they shoot other people! They shot those customers! There's gonna be some kind of…we're gonna die, and there'll be bullet holes the size of…bowling balls!"

Jackson scowled, attempting to inspect his own tongue. He looked fairly stupid.

"Chunk, I've had enough of your stories. I reckon this is one of those theme restaurants. The horror ones. They're just rehearsing, that's all."

Mrs. Nesbitt walked back into the room. There were four glasses of water on the tray she carried. 

Well.

You could say water, but all four were the colour of rust and the sort of concerning thing you probably wouldn't drink unless you were about to die of dehydration. And even then you'd probably think twice about it. As such, five children looked at each other. 

Five children attempted to discreetly play rock-paper-scissors in order to determine who didn't have to drink the water. They were unsuccessful. 

Mrs. Nesbitt waited at the end of the table, arms crossed. Ruby, in order to avoid drinking the water, started talking.

"Ma'am? Where's…uh, where's the ladies' room?"

"Can't you hold it?"

"Nope."

Julio over his shoulder. Outside, someone…two someones were carrying a very large bag of trash into a bin. This wasn't safe. He needed to get his friends out. If this was a theme restaurant, it sure was a good one.

"The bathroom's downstairs. Basement. To the right."

"Thank you."

Ruby walked to the stairs. Matilda eyed one of the glasses. Ruby didn't have to drink any of the damn water. Smart of her.

"STAY TO THE RIGHT!"

Mrs. Nesbitt was leering over the stairs like a flower-printed gargoyle. Ruby nodded. 

"Uh-huh, stay to the right, got it, thank you."

Ruby, naturally, did not stay to the right.

Like any good leader of a group of adventurers, Ruby Peet did exactly the opposite of what she'd been told and traipsed into the basement, unrolled her map, and made a quick estimation on the steps thing. 

"I know you're down here, One-Eyed Willy."

Ruby was speaking in a whisper, but she was speaking nonetheless. The water dripping from the ceiling was so loud she sounded silent. She took another step forward, and only quick reflexes stopped her from hitting her head on a lightbulb.

"You've gotta be down here somewhere."

There was a sound. It sounded like sparks flying, whirring machinery. It also sounded like a roar. 

"What the hell was that?"

There was a puddle, of sorts, in her way of investigating the noise directly, but she crept to the edge of it and peered into the room the sound had come from.

The room was dark-so very dark. You could only make out silhouettes thanks to the flying sparks. A figure was fiddling with something. A machine. No, not a machine, perhaps, for even as he fixed it, it roared, reared, moved. She'd never seen any sort of machine that did that. A second figure was next to the bulky, strange hunk of metal, speaking, saying something in a language Ruby didn't speak. 

The hunk of metal was chained to the wall. Ruby didn't want to find out why.

She normally wouldn't have run away. She felt like a coward doing it. But there was something she'd never seen…unless, maybe, you could count cartoons, but even those weren't like that…and she did not want to deal with that right now.

To be perfectly honest, she didn't really want to deal with what lay at the top of the stairs either.

Chaz had caught up with them, and was busy yelling at Jackson.

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST STAY AT HOME? NO, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ONE OF YOUR DAMN STORIES, MOUTH. WE'RE GOING HOME. ALL OF US. NOW! I DON'T WANT TO-"

He'd successfully pulled Jackson out the door. The rest of The Nerds followed the two brothers, being shooed away by Mrs. Nesbitt. Once she'd gotten them all out the door, she slammed it and leaned against it, taking a breath of the dust-filled air. She muttered something about kids, then something about her good-for-nothing sons, and then muttered her way downstairs. She'd never liked basements.

Outside, Ruby had clambered onto a rock and was addressing the group as if she was giving a speech.

"…and it lit up, sort of all ghouly, and it roared, it roared worse than that lion on TV…"

"Yeah, right."

Chaz lifted Ruby off the rock she'd been standing on. 

"You've got real imaginations, the lot of you."

Ruby kicked her legs in the air aggressively. She almost hit several of her friends in the head. She was promptly dropped. 

"All of you, we're going home. And that doesn't just mean our home-"

He hit Jackson on the head. Fairly lightly. There was too much hairspray for it to have any real effect. 

"That means everyone's home. Respective home. No crashing through windows on a clothesline, we can always hear you coming, Data."

Duncan muttered something that may or may not have been about not appreciating a good invention. Jackson attempted to punch Chaz's head. He did not succeed.

"In a few hours we aren't even gonna have homes, genius!"

"Still, Mouth, we should go home, and I think Mama Rosa's making a pie…"

Ruby interrupted, still a little offended at being dropped.

"No! This our time, our very last chance to see if there really is any treasure!"

Julio reconsidered. 

"We gotta go. I could buy so much pie with treasure."

Three people came out of the restaurant, arguing with each other. They climbed into the bullet-ridden car and sped off. Chaz, upon seeing said bullet holes, tugged a small group of kids that were now his responsibility-how had this happened?-behind a cluster of rocks. Julio popped up again to point out said bullet holes.

"Get-get down! Stop! Do-"

"See, I told you there were bullet holes, in your faces!"

Even as Julio was violently tugged to the ground, Jackson yelped rather violently. Someone had just put their hands on his shoulders, and who the hell would be out here? He spun around. 

Oh. Just Mindy.

Mindy who was now laughing because he'd yelped. 

Stupid Mindy.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you hyena."

"You scared me!"

Julio scrambled to his feet, one hand on his heart like the people on his Mama's stories. Mindy continued laughing. 

"Y'know, Mouth, you look better from behind!"

"Hey, hey, Mindy, you wanna see something really scary?"

Jackson pulled a pocket mirror out of his jacket and swung it into Mindy's face.

"Get a load of that!"

Tanisha was not paying this exchange any attention. She'd gone straight up to Chaz. Her brother was making a series of faces that strongly resembled a dog sucking on a lemon, all of which were being used to imitate Tanisha and make Matilda and Julio laugh.

"We followed you."

Chaz attempted to slick back his hair.

"Oh, uh, did you now?"

"Yeah, Troy was giving us a lift. Sorry about…your face."

Chaz brushed his wrist against the scrape on his face.

"Uh, well, it wasn't your fault."

Tanisha shrugged.

"All the same. He was being a real jerk, and I think he was trying to look down my shirt. So I elbowed him in the lip and got out."

"You elbowed his lip?"

Mindy, still laughing, had now stopped making fun of Jackson. 

"Oh yeah! That was awesome."

The Nerds had made their way right back to the restaurant's door. Duncan was trying to remember how many paces they'd had left. Jackson tried the door for the third time.

"Yeah, it's definitely locked."

"Thank god!"

Julio turned around to go back, but Jackson caught the back of his jacket. 

"Hey, Chunk, y'know what? Your Mama Rosa's cooking sucks."

Julio's mouth fell open.

"What?"

"Yeah, really, even the bakery in town makes better pies."

"THAT BAKERY'S PIES SUCK!"

Jackson stepped neatly to the side. Julio charged straight into the door, knocking it out of the frame. Ruby poked her head through it, staring at Julio, who had fallen on his hands and knees on the felled door.

"I can't believe that worked."

"I'm telling you, he's way stronger than he looks. Thanks, Chunk."

Matilda jumped over the boy, who was now lying down with his face pressed into the ground.

"Yeah! Thanks, Chunk!"

Over by some rocks, Chaz noticed The Nerds were missing. He started marching in the general direction of the restaurant. Tanisha followed him. Mindy followed Tanisha. Chaz spun back around. 

"Oh, I'm just getting my brother, I won't be a second."

Chaz flashed what was supposed to be a charming smile. Tanisha smiled back. Mindy rolled her eyes. 

"Will the two of you wait here for a second?"

"Oh, of course!"

Chaz sprinted back to the building. 

"I'm not staying here."

"I know, Mindy."

"You're being really sappy."

"I know, Mindy."

"Those kids are being really weird."

"You can't call them kids, you're what, a year older than them?"

"I can do what I want."

"Uh-huh, Mindy. Hey, do you really think he likes me?"

"OF COURSE HE DOES, ARE YOU BLIND-"

Back inside the restaurant, a group of children were arguing. It mostly concerned exactly how many steps they still had to take, and the direction in which they had to take them. Ruby, still holding, the map, took charge.

"NO! We've got to get to the lowest point of the floor."

"Lowest point of the floor nothing, I meant it when I said home."

While pacing, Mindy stepped on a rake. 

The rake sprang up.

There was a dead bird on the end of the rake.

The rake very nearly hit Mindy in the face.

"HOLY-"

"AGH! AGH! NO!"

Tanisha ran away from birds that sprung up into faces. Mindy followed. They were running towards the restaurant. Also screaming. 

But the main thing was away from dead birds.

"No, Chaz, we're gonna find treasure, we're saving the house-"

"You're still not listening, Mouth-"

Mindy and Tanisha had now made their way into the restaurant. Tanisha went straight for Chaz, and attached herself to his side.

"Oh, it was so gross-"

"It was my face, why are you so-"

"Turn on the lights."

Ruby sounded oddly authorative. Matilda flipped a switch. The group, as a whole, was able to appreciate just how filthy the restaurant was. Mindy, eyes wide, sort of blinked at the room.

"Oh, my god."

Tanisha, still attached to Chaz, who now had his arm around her, almost screamed again.

"Oh, oh, my god."

The light bulb exploded. The group was almost glad for it. Jackson jumped back into his argument.

"Chaz, just give us one more minute, what would that hurt?"

Duncan nodded, checking his compass again. Chaz took a step towards the door.

"No, no, we're going home right now."

"What if we find something?"

Matilda was already standing at the top of the basement stairs, bouncing on her heels. Tanisha looked up at Brand.

"You could give them a few more minutes, couldn't you? I don't mind waiting while they're looking…so long as you stay here with me."

At least three people pretended to vomit. Chaz sort of shrugged. 

"Well, listen to her, she knows what she's talking about."

"She didn't know what she was talking about when-"

"Duncan Dewey, if you finish that sentence-"

"I listened to her, go away!"

One of The Nerds whooped. They barrelled down the stairs. Mindy followed them, with Chaz and Tanisha a good way behind.

There was an exceptionally odd noise.

"Chunk, I hope that was your stomach."

"Not me, Mat. Promise."

"It wasn't him. It was the machine."

"Ruby, no-one really thinks that machine-"

"It's real. Honest. Wanna see?"

"No, I don't. I want to get to that treasure."

"Mouth, don't be a spoilsport-"

As the kids argued, Tanisha turned again to Chaz.

"I don't want to see it."

"That's fine."

"You know what I do want to…"

"EW!"

"DUNCAN, SHUT UP."

"THE CREATURE-HEY MOUTH, THEY WERE GONNA-"

"EWWW!"

"Oh, shut up."

Two younger brothers had been sufficiently grossed out. Julio had found a water cooler.

"You-Mouth, shut it, we're not sitting anywhere-"

Julio was thirsty. He didn't have a cup.

"It's not g-we are not-no! Duncan, stop pretending to be sick-"

Oh, he could just blast the water right into his mouth!

"Oh, Mindy, would you stop encouraging my brother-"

That was his eye. That was…well.

"No, don't the rest of you join in-Ruby, is that a-you're not going to get very far digging through concrete!"

Ah, there we go. He'd done it. Boy, had he ever been thirsty.

"Jealous morons, the lot of you, because you couldn't get a date if you tried, yes, I'm applying that to all of you, no, I don't want to hear about it-"

He could stand up no…

Julio knocked a glass water cooler to the ground. It exploded rather fantastically. A group of people turned around to look at him.

"I didn't do it."

The water was running, draining…

Draining.

"You guys, the water's running out somewhere! We can get lower! We can find it! We're gonna find it!"

Ruby's enthusiasm caught on. Chaz moved in to take a look.

"Out of the way."

Tanisha, somewhat sappily, looked at Chaz.

"He's being so sweet to me."

Mindy rolled her eyes for the millionth time.

"You're off in the clouds, but we're in a basement. Tanisha, what is happening?"

Chaz had followed the water to a fireplace. It was boarded up, but the boards looked like they would break if you leaned on them. 

"I told you! I told you!"

"Yeah, yeah."

Chaz pulled the boards off the fireplace, then stuck his hand out over it. That was a drapht.

"There's something down there."

"WHOO!"

Duncan had found something. Like a printer, maybe. He hit a few buttons, and was surprised when it actually began printing. He picked up one of the sheets and was shocked to find…

"Fifty dollar bills! You guys! Fifty dollar-this has gotta be enough money to save the Goon Docks!"

"What?"

"No way."

"Let me see. Move over!"

"Oh, wow, really! Real fifty dollar bills!"

"Nah."

The group looked at Mindy.

"They're not real. They're counterfeit. You can get a whole bunch of time in jail for that."

Jackson dropped the sheet he'd been holding.

"What a letdown."

Julio was shaking his head aggressively.

"No, I told you guys, and I kept telling you, these guys are bad news, and I don't know if I can-That's ice cream."

"What?"

"I can smell ice cream."

"What are you now, some sort of bloodhound?"

"Sure!"

Jackson, frustrated, attempted to explain to Julio that his statement was supposed to be at least vaguely insulting. Julio was not listening. Most of the group made their way towards the freezer that had smelled of ice cream, with the exceptions of Duncan and Matilda, who went to find more machines and more large potential weapons, respectively. Matilda didn't find anything. Duncan found a small sphere of metal that was whirring, so he put it into his backpack.

Julio flung open the door to the freezer. Most of the group stared into it in mute shock.

"Wow, they've got all my favourites! Whoa, triple-chocolate, this is the real treasure, I'm telling you…what is it?"

Julio turned.

There was a dead man's body leaning next to the ice cream.

There was then quite a lot of screaming.

Upstairs, someone flung a door open with reckless abandon. Chaz attempted to stop as much screaming as he could. These people were even worse than they'd realised. Julio backed out of the freezer, which swung shut. The group of children (and teenagers) were as silent as they could be. They, as a bunched-up collective, tried not to breathe.

Upstairs, the Nesbitts were talking.

"Somebody's been here."

Mrs. Nesbitt was the sort of loud you couldn't ignore. It was, in the moment, absolutely terrifying. 

"I thought I shut it. Who left the light on?"

"The bulb's exploded again. It'd be your fault, brother dearest."

"Pizza."

Everyone turned to Julio, who had made the last statement in a whisper. 

"They've got a pizza."

Jackson laughed, so quietly it was almost silent, shaking his head.

"He is a bloodhound."

"Shut up, the both of you."

The two boys listened to Chaz. Upstairs, the Nesbitts started quarrelling.

"Mom, he's eating…Mom, he's eating my pepperoni!"

Simon scoffed at his brother.

"You want your pepperoni? Huh? Huh?"

The buck-toothed man pulled a gun on his brother. His brother pulled a gun on him.

"Come one. Come on. Let's kill each other over a slice of pizza."

"Both of you, guns away! The dinner table is no place for guns."

Both men did, muttering about taking sides. Who was supposed to be taking who's side, exactly, remained unclear.

Downstairs, Ruby told the rest of the group they'd be discovered in a second if these people came downstairs. A flurry of movement started as the group tried to think of where they could go. 

Ruby went over and stood by the fireplace, waiting for them to figure it out. Chaz was looking towards the stairs.

"We could go back up…"

"The murders are eating dinner upstairs."

Chaz frowned at Ruby and kept looking.

"We could go through a side door?"

"There are no side doors, Mouth."

Mindy was running her hands across the walls of the dark room.

"There isn't a window, we're underground."

Mindy stopped.

"Don't you see? We've got to go through the fireplace. We're meant to look for that treasure. We don't even have another choice."

Jackson was the first to shrug and head for the fireplace. His brother grabbed the back of his jacket.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"You heard her. It all starts here."

Chaz looked towards the stairs one more time, before sighing and heading for the fireplace.

"Fine, but you aren't going first. I am."

"Watch your foot."

Chaz disappeared down the vertical drop the fireplace had been hiding. Tanisha followed him, with the sort of semi-disgusted look that actually did resemble Duncan's mocking faces. Jackson, attempting to look as cool as he could, slicked his hair back and pretended he was going in backwards. Before he could turn around, Mindy half-shoved him and jumped. Julio cannonballed, and was only barely persuaded against yelling as he fell by Duncan, who followed. Matilda and Ruby stared at each other for a second before the former decided that she was not going last, though she did stop to pull out her inhaler again.

As such, it was only Ruby left in the room as the Nesbitts came back down the stairs, and it only took about half the staircase before she was gone too.

"Someone's been here."

Mrs. Nesbitt looked around the room, trying to figure out why her son thought so. 

"Yeah?"

"The water. Broken glass."

"Well…"

Albert seemed unconvinced.

"Could have been a tremor."

"I'll show you a tremor!"

"Simon, go check on your brother."

"I'm going, I'm going."

"You didn't let him just stay, right? Because if he's broken the new chains-"

"Yes, I put him to sleep, he would have been fine. We could have even brought him, I'm telling you-"

"You know the pizza place doesn't like it when we bring your brother."

"Then let's leave Albert at home too!"

"Ah, stop that, Simon. Albert, come help me with the other agent."

Under the basement, a small group started stumbling along. They were in a tunnel so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. When you couldn't see anything at all, a few minutes of walking started feeling like an hour, and you tripped every few seconds. They ended up holding the backs of each other's jackets in order to pull everyone else back up. Tanisha tripped for the eighth time, and yelped as she almost tumbled. She didn't-Chaz pulled her back up-but it was enough that she fell into the sort of sour mood that made her brother call her The Creature.

"We've been walking forever. How much further do you plan on going?"

The 'you' wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Maybe the tunnel, if you were being generous. But if it was the tunnel, it had no mouth to answer her question, so they were silent once more. 

"Mouth, that was my foot!"

Until Jackson stepped on Mindy's foot. 

"Holy-where are my glasses?"

There was the sort of sickening crunch that let them know exactly where Mindy's glasses were.

Jackson had frozen.

"Uh. I, I found your glasses, Mindy. Sorry."

A small sculpture of crushed metal and glass was handed back to the girl. 

"Are these-you broke my glasses! Oh, I can't see a damn thing!"

"None of us can see a damn thing, it's too dark."

Matilda ran into Duncan's backpack. There were a lot of gadgets in it, which meant it hurt more than was probably reasonable. 

Hey, there were a lot of gadgets in Duncan's backpack.

Surely one of them was a torch.

"Data, do you have a light?"

"A light? Oh, yeah! Sure, guys!"

There were torches attached to Duncan's belt. Two of them.

Both were so bright most of the group had to close their eyes. 

"These are my bully blinders!"

"They're blinding me, alright, do they go any…jeez, any less bright?"

"Sorry guys, they're meant for blinding. You know one time, on my way home-"

Duncan swung around to tell the group the story. They stumbled, just as blind as they'd been in the darkness. 

"Who is that-oh, Mindy, sorry. Watch out, Data."

"Sorry Mouth, oh and guys, the problem with these things is…"

The lights faded out and the group stood in darkness once again.

"The batteries don't last so long. Sorry."

"There's a light!"

Ruby was pointing, but no-one could see her hand. However, the tiny light was visible, even if there was nobody to point it out.

"We should be going that way."

So, stumbling and falling and yelling, they did.

Upstairs, someone screamed.

"YOUR BROTHER IS GONE!"

"What?"

"What?"

"You heard me, I know you both heard me, someone's taken Benjamin."

"No, he probably just…uh, flew off again."

"Our sentient, incredibly smart robot, the one we made sure to put into the mode in which he is a small metal ball, just flew off again? Well, that won't cause an uproar! We have to find him."

"Well. Let's go."

There was a lantern. A box of only-slightly-damp matches had been pulled out of Duncan's backpack, and a group of kids were trying to light said lantern. So far, it was proving difficult.

"So help me Chunk, if you hit my arm one more time-"

"I'm just trying to see!"

"You've made three matches go out! We don't have that many!"

The lantern, slowly, slowly, was successfully lit. Chaz swung it above his head, and everyone was able to see pipes.

So many pipes, stretching on for far too long above their heads. 

"Does anyone know…what these are for?"

"They're water pipes."

Duncan walked up to one, quiet and perfectly calm.

"Which means if we make enough noise, somebody might hear us."

A group of children and teenagers fell upon pipes, screaming and banging and yanking. Above them, several things went horribly wrong at a country club.

As a drinking fountain exploded, the pipes started making a strange, worrying noise. Duncan remembered the book he'd been reading about this. 

"Backpressure!"

"What…what the hell does that mean?"

"It means let's get out of here!"

Ruby watched as leaks sprung around her, multiplying by the second.

"Now!"

Mindy, still seeing her surroundings as a series of blobs, was pulled along by Jackson as the group scrambled away from the every-growing jets of water. One of the pipes managed to blast away enough of the wall for the group to scramble through. They were all yelling, trying to keep the water away from them, trying to keep the lantern dry, trying to keep the map dry, scrambling, scrambling. 

They left the fast-flooding room behind them.

The next room was darker. Murkier. Even with the lantern, it was hard to see. Mindy was rummaging through her pockets for her contacts case as she was dragged, muttering.

"I can't see a damn thing. What am I stepping on? Oh, brother…"

Ruby, leading, at least a little, was pretty sure they were going in the right direction. 

"A lantern! Guys, look!"

Matilda looked.

"Then someone's been here before us."

Julio staggered into someone. 

"Maybe they're still here!"

Mindy found the right pocket and let go of Jackson.

"God, I hope not. This one's my contacts, isn't it?"

"Yeah, you're good."

Tanisha came through the wall last, shivering and trying to stay calm.

"About…ten minutes ago. Ten minutes ago, I was in Brett's car and I was going to play golf. Oh, if I wasn't so…If I wasn't so stupid, I'd be playing golf right now! And I'd be safe! Completely and utterly safe!"

"Are you okay, Tanisha?"

Chaz walked back a few paces so he was next to her. She was shaking like a leaf, and the impression seemed to be that she wasn't just cold.

"Shoot, my damn toe-"

Mindy successfully got her other contact on, and spun back to face Tanisha. 

"Oh no."

Duncan started tugging on his sister's jacket.

"Tanisha? Hey, Tanisha?"

She was still muttering.

"Oh, now I'm safe, no, now I'm not safe because I'm underground, but I'm young, and I'm pretty, and people will try to keep me safe, but I'll get old, I'll get old and gross and awful, and no-one will want to protect me, and it'll be so horrible, oh, how many years do I have left before…before I end up like him!"

The group followed Tanisha's shaking, pointing, finger. 

She was pointing to a skeleton. 

There were a few shrieks. Tanisha started sobbing. Chaz managed to catch her before she collapsed on the ground, so she collapsed onto him instead.

The Nesbitts tore apart their basement, looking for their brother.

The kids, and Chaz, who was not a kid thank you very much, were examining the skeleton while Tanisha sobbed into Mindy's shoulder.

"Look at him."

They all were, so Chaz's statement was a little redundant. Unless you counted Duncan, who kept looking over his shoulder at his sister. He was-although he probably wouldn't have said it-pretty concerned about her. Matilda hit Julio's hand away from the skeleton.

"Don't touch it! Why would you touch it?"

Ruby was talking, on some level, to the map when she next spoke.

"This is one of your tricks, isn't it One-Eyed Willy? You wouldn't go through all this trouble unless you had something really good to hide."

Mindy patted Tanisha's shoulder.

"I know. I know. It's fine. We're all out of our element."

"You don't understand."

Duncan remembered something.

"It's the guy from the attic! In the paper!"

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Who?"

"Oh, you guys know, the last guy who went looking for One-Eyed Willy's treasure. Remember?"

Matilda nodded. 

"That expert. He said he knew what he was doing. He was a professional, but I guess he never found the treasure."

The end of her sentence was almost violent in its silence. How would they find anything?

Chaz cleared his throat.

"Oh."

Tanisha panicked sometimes, but she adapted quickly. She would be fine. No, she had to be fine. No way around it.

"You're sure we're okay?"

"Tanisha, I am positive."

The group was now going through the skeleton's bag, in search of the skeleton's wallet, because Julio wouldn't accept that the skeleton was, in fact, the man from the article. 

"See? Says it right there, on his card."

"Well, I found a bunch of candles!"

The candles were red, and seemed to all be joined at a single wick. Mat held them up, triumphant.

"Oh, sweet! Give them to me, they'll fit in my backpack."

Jackson hoisted the man's bag above his head and shook the entirety of the contents out onto the ground. There was a particularly loud crash. 

Several people turned to stare at Jackson.

Jackson, not noticing the aforementioned staring, pulled something out of the pile. 

"Hey, it's like…a skeleton key. A real life skeleton key!"

It was a key, that much was for sure. A key, dark-it could have been black or grey or green, the lantern wasn't casting enough light. But a skeleton key? Depended on your definition. If you wanted a key that looked like a skeleton?

Yes, there were the gaping eye sockets, there was the jaw…the top of the key looked like a skeleton, and if you wanted that sort of skeleton key, this was the key for you.

However, if you wanted a key that opened every lock?

You'd want to look elsewhere.

There was a very long piece of string attached to one of the key's eye sockets, but Jackson didn't see the string until he'd yanked it towards the lantern, and everyone else only saw it when the non-key skeleton's head was pulled clean off its neck.

"Oh."

There were three seconds of silence so absolute you could hear hearts beating.

"Whoops."

Chaz, slowly, carefully, crept towards the fallen skull. There were a few squeals, and at least three people began enthusiastically telling him not to touch it.

"Shut it, you guys, just shut it. This is a respect thing, okay? Mouth, touching a skeleton isn't going to…well, it isn't going to kill me. You can all just…"

He'd now picked up the skull and was holding it, as carefully as he could, over the headless skeleton. 

"Calm…down. There, see?"

The skeleton sure seemed fine. All the same, as Chaz stepped back, he turned to his brother.

"Mouth, you can't hold the key."

"Well, geez, man, I dunno, I'm the one who found it, I'm the…okay, fine, Ruby, here."

Ruby shook him off, looking up at a hole in the cavern, comparing it to her map. It seemed so far above their heads…

"I don't have any pockets, and I'm probably allergic to something to do with skeletons. Dust? Bone…no, that one's ridiculous, but I'm not putting it around my neck."

"I have pockets."

"Here you go then, Mindy."

The not-technically-a-skeleton key was now in the front pocket of a pair of old fishing overalls. Ruby looked up at what seemed to be the path out of the tavern. 

"Well, now we've…"

Ruby stopped talking.

Something was wrong. 

She didn't know quite what it was. But the back of her neck prickled, her arms itched, and her head spun. Something was about to…

Ruby's shoe picked up a string. A string laid out across the ground. Something was telling her that this wasn't going to end well unless…

"DON'T MOVE."

And all of a sudden, the room was a room of statues. 

"You…should…look…up."

Ruby, herself, hadn't stopped, but her instruction let the rest of the group see what she saw. Above their head, boulders swung, and a blade was slicing back and forth across a rope. Something was about to fall. The most they could do was slow it, not disturb the string, not add to the momentum.

Unless they came up with a genius plan really, really fast, they were about to be trapped. And crushed. And killed. 

Ruby's weird instincts had stopped it. Was it possible to be allergic to getting crushed? Probably not. Okay. What plans did they have?

The only opening Ruby could currently see was far, far above their heads, along with the rocks and a rope that wouldn't hold them forever. 

"Can anyone…see a way out…that isn't above us?"

"Yes!"

Duncan. The other end of the room. Matilda, who had just put the candles into his backpack, confirmed it.

"It's sort of small, but it's here."

Ruby tried to look in their direction without turning. Her hair got in the way. Stupid hair.

"Okay. So we're going to get out through there. Will you fit?"

"Uhm, Mat might have to hold my backpack, but yeah."

"Can you see the wire where you are?"

There was an ominous noise above the group. 

"Nope."

"Then you two are going to go through, then Chunk, then Chaz, Andi, Stef, Mouth, me. In order of who's most likely to disturb the string, from what I can see of it. Move fast, but try not to run. Go. Right now."

Duncan handed off his backpack, and stuck his hand out when he was about halfway through for it. It got wider. 

Not that much wider. And then narrower again. 

It was stupid and tighter than they probably should have tried to fit through, and everyone was hitting their heads. There was a point where people got stuck and had to be either pulled or shoved. Still, everyone but Ruby was at least most of the way through before the first rock fell. 

The sand exploded up, the ground started to shake, Ruby came about the closest she'd ever been to swearing violently. She stopped holding up the string and started running. 

Another rock fell behind her, one that would have hit her if she hadn't jumped aside. Her legs were itching now. Maybe it was the sand, maybe the falling rocks were disturbing the dust. At the last second, she turned back and grabbed the lantern before letting herself be pulled through the tunnel.

The room on the other side didn't have dangling rocks.

She checked the second she stepped into it. After she'd confirmed, she started breathing properly again. 

"That was close."

Everyone, she noted, had crowded around something. She went to crowd in the same area.

There was a rock. They were attempting to press their ears to it. To listen. 

"What…what's happening?"

"Something's…squeaking. 

Julio spoke quietly. A little uncertain. Listening. Tanisha straightened up.

"Do you think it could be a way out?"

Mindy glanced back at Tanisha.

"Maybe it's the Nesbitts."

Jackson, a little shaken, was standing further back.

"Or another trap. There's probably way more, especially if we're getting closer, and guys while I hate to admit it I really do think we're gonna end up…"

"Shut up, Mouth."

Chaz, after telling his brother to shut up, started to roll the rock to the side. Ruby looked at the map, then at the rock, then at the map…

"Uh, Chaz, I think that rock was there for-"

Darkness flew.

Bats filled the room, a torrent of them, everywhere, everywhere. Julio was screaming. Everyone waved their hands, keeping the bats away from their faces. How did you react when bats flew at you? 

Oddly. If the evidence currently being displayed was to be believed.

"Sit! Sit!"

Jackson couldn't think of any reasons why these bats would behave like his dad's dog, but it didn't matter, and he couldn't think, and they were doing to mess up his hair! Some of the group stumbled back, but the entire room was bat-filled. There wasn't a space without them. Someone, desperate and worried, voiced concern about getting rabies, which started off the second wave of panic. The bats flew into the next room, over the fallen boulders, up, up to the exit far above everyone's heads…

And into the room where the Nesbitts searched.

"They're coming from the fireplace! I'm telling you!"

"You're telling me nothing, Albert, you're as blind as a damn…oh. Oh, there are…"

"BATS! BOTH OF YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING…"

"It'll be Benjamin, won't it? He's opened the fireplace. He's doing something."

"Exploring, I'll bet. Now, if my mindless sons would help me into my fireplace?"

Duncan was walking in the front of the group, still cheerful, somehow.

"Y'know, if we keep going like this, we'll end up on the other side of the world."

"No we won't. We're headed absolutely nowhere, little brother, and we're never getting out of it!"

Mindy was ridiculously grateful she wasn't wearing the heeled boots she'd almost walked out of the house in. She'd switched for sneakers at the last second, and even they were killing her feet. How long had they been walking for anyway?

Also, there was clearly something wrong with her contacts. Blurry as hell. 

Tanisha was a thundercloud to her brother's endless pep, and separating the siblings seemed like a very good option right now. Easy enough. Chaz approached the frowning girl and offered her his hand. 

"Uh, if it gets dangerous, I, uh, want to be…closer to you."

The girl positively melted. As such, Chaz and Tanisha rounded the corner together and looked out across a scene that was…well. Beautiful.

A waterfall…a real waterfall, an underground waterfall, into a pond, a pond that was simply shining with…

"Gold!"

Julio was right. Gold, and silver, and bronze…enough coins to make the whole cavern practically glitter. They'd done it! They'd found it! 

"Oh, we'll never have to work…"

"There's so much of it! We won't even be able to carry it all!"

They were certainly trying though.

"How long do you think this has all been down here?"

Duncan squinted at one of the coins he was holding.

"Hey, uh, guys, what year was that map made again?"

Jackson looked through his handful, holding them up to the light, which was coming from somewhere above them.

"Uh, I'd say a couple hundred years before…President Lincoln…George Washington and, uh, Martin Sheen."

"Martin Sheen?"

Both Mindy and Tanisha were confused enough to bother going over to squint at Jackson's coin themselves. Mindy got there first.

"That's President Kennedy, you idiot!"

"Well, same difference! He played Kennedy once, didn't he?"

"Oh, that's real smart, you're sure using your brain!"

"Well, at least I have a brain!"

"Shut up, Mouth!"

"No, everyone shut up."

Matilda was looking straight up, right past the waterfall.

"This isn't treasure. We're in a wishing well."

Jackson, attempting to pocket the coins, stared at her as if she'd lost her mind.

"What does that matter? It's still money! It's still treasure."

"No, when you throw money into a wishing well it becomes your wish."

Matilda sounded utterly serious. 

"If you take anybody else's wish, it's never gonna come true, so you're not taking the wishes."

Jackson sighed and turned out his pockets. The coins clattered and spun on the rocks. The rest of the group, somewhat reluctant, turned out their own pockets. Julio picked up on of the coins he'd dropped.

"No, all the wishes, every one of them."

"This one's my wish. It didn't come true, no matter how many times I made it, and it's a lost cause. I'm taking it back."

There was an odd, stiff silence. Throats were cleared. People scooped up their own wishes. The ones that hadn't come true. 

That was all they were taking.

Ruby looked at the map as if she would have liked to punch it.

Above them, just outside a rather nice country club, a boy attempted to look cool as two of his friends approached, waving. 

"Brett! Hey, Brett!"

"Oh, it's you guys."

A deliberate pause. 

"Hey."

They clustered toward him. 

"You took that girl for a ride today, huh? Tanisha?"

"Her? Oh, yeah."

"Yeah, you get her yet?"

"That Chaz guy likes her, doesn't he? The idiot who thinks he's in with a chance? He's got the one friend!"

"Oh, I showed that guy alright. I'll have to tell you guys about it. And I didn't get her yet…"

He flipped a coin over his shoulder and into the well he was leaning on with the sort of effortless cool of a guy who's been practising for half an hour.

"…but emphasis on yet."

The coin hit the ground right next to Chaz's foot. He looked up. Who the hell was that?

"What'dya wish for?"

"Ah, now, if I tell you, it won't come true."

The coin flew back out of the well, hitting Brett square in the face before dropping into his hand. He stared at it for a good ten seconds before he leaned over the well and yelled.

"Who's down there?"

There was shouting. Jumbled, echoing, but he recognised one of the voices.

"Hey, Tanisha, is that you?"

"Yeah! We're stuck down here!"

She was standing on her tiptoes, as if being slightly taller would make her louder.

"Could you send the bucket down? To get us back up?"

Brett screwed up his face in the general direction of the well, despite the fact that no-one trapped within it could tell.

"What the hell are you…how the hell did you…what's happening?"

"Don't ask any stupid questions, just send me the damn bucket."

Brett did. Laughing, his friends laughing. It echoed off the walls. Sounded weird.

The Nesbitts had gathered flashlights. They stood, a small cluster, around the fireplace's entrance. 

"Simon, you go first."

"What? Mom, I'm not going…"

The woman had pulled out one of her trustworthy knives. 

Simon went first.

The bucket hit the ground. Matilda scrambled for it.

"I'm the smallest, so I'm going first, right?"

Chaz blocked her with an outstretched arm.

"No, I'm the oldest, and I'm deciding the order. Tanisha's going first. "

Ruby, ignoring the igniting sparks of a fight, looked up from the map.

"We've made it further than the pro."

She went unheard, so she raised her voice.

"We've made it further than the explorer!"

The group turned to look at her.

"We've made it so far already, you guys! Don't you see! We've got a chance!"

Chaz shook his head at the girl.

"A chance at what? Getting ourselves killed?"

"Don't say that."

Matilda looked almost offended.

"Nerds never say die."

Tanisha tucked her hair behind her ear, not really looking at anything, just looking up.

"I'm not a Nerd. I want to go home."

"Sorry, I forgot."

Ruby was not to be deterred.

"But don't you realise? We're losing that, all of us. We're gonna be in different towns, with different bullies, different friends, no friends at all. We're gonna be in different houses, we're gonna be in different schools, we'll never get anything in this town again, not ice-cream, not magazines, not hairspray, not memories. We're outta here. But we don't have to be! Right now, right this very second, we've got the chance to keep everything. We've got the chance to find treasure, and have an adventure, and stay in the world as we know it. We get to keep each other, or at least have a shot at it, if we keep going down here. That's over the second you decide you want Brett Bealer to save you. The second you decide you're a damsel in distress. This is our time. This is our treasure. This is our adventure! As long as we keep going!"

Brett Bealer Jr. hadn't really been expecting the bucket to be this heavy. Maybe that girl, Mindy something, was with Tanisha. Nah, surely not, but it was a real testament to his strength that he was managing to pull it up by himself. An impressive testament. 

Finally, finally, he'd managed to pull it into view. He'd almost collapsed in the process. His arms hurt like all hell. 

He should have let his friends help him, but would that have impressed Tanisha?

Tanisha. 

Where was Tanisha?

The bucket was wearing Brett's letter jacket, the one he'd let Tanisha have earlier that day. The pockets were filled with rocks and dirt, as was the bucket itself. There was no Tanisha. He'd hauled the bucket up for his jacket. 

Just his jacket. 

He lost his grip on the rope, and the bucket went tumbling back down, spilling dirt and rocks and tipping his jacket somewhere in a wishing well, where he'd never get it back. He'd be in trouble for losing it. Tanisha Dewey was awful. Tanisha Dewey was cruel. Tanisha Dewey had absolutely humiliated him. 

"TANISHA DEWEY, YOU HORRIBLE NERD-!"

Underground, Tanisha nodded. She seemed almost proud to have been insulted. 

"Hey, Duncan, you know those little flying things you made last summer?"

"What about them?"

"When we get home, I'm going to borrow them, and I'm going to make Brett Bealer pay."

"Okay then. There's a leech on your arm."

Chaz walked past them, deceptively calm.

"We should not be in this pond."

The second he got out, you could see the leeches on his legs. They were on everyone. 

The panicking almost seemed repetitive. 

The things were pulled off, the group was panicking, the group was fine, no-one was dead. Tanisha bothered to punch her brother's shoulder for not telling her immediately. One of the devices attached to Duncan whirred violently and a single plastic dart fired itself at the ground. 

Tanisha rolled her eyes. The Nerds kept walking. 

In a room filled with boulders, two men attempted to help their mother over a rock. She swore again and again, stuck on the very top of one as Simon pushed her upwards and Albert pulled her down. Over her shoulder, she yelled. 

"If you don't get me over this thing before your brother pulls my arms off, I'll-"

They didn't get to know what she was going to do. She tumbled over, falling into Albert. The second she was on her feet, she slapped him. 

"What was that for?"

"For what your brother just did."

"Why didn't you slap him?"

"He's not over here yet!"

Albert didn't bother with pushing this any further. He instead turned to the skeleton that lay in front of them. 

"Say, Ma, would he have stopped…"

The man was slapped again for his trouble.

"Stupid! We've got something bigger to worry about!"

Simon fell to the ground. His yelling was ignored. 

"Look there, you blind moron!"

Mrs. Nesbitt was pointing to a footprint in the sand.

Too small to be Benjamin's. 

"Do you…"

"Your brother's been kidnapped. Follow the footprints, and move fast!"

Ruby stared in front of her, then passed the map to her left. 

"Chunk, translate this."

"Uh…"

He stepped from foot to foot, shifting his weight, struggling.

"Guys, a lot of this isn't stuff you say normally, you know, and a lot of it reminds me of what Mama Rosa yells at the TV, and that's not a good-"

"Just try!"

"Uh, uh, something about metal bones…it'd be copper, yeah, copper of bones. No, uh, something about…bubbles? And three stones. Wait, uh, Bones of copper, bubbles…foam…something west, three stones."

"That doesn't sound right."

"Well, I'm trying my best!"

Mindy pulled the key out of her pocket and waved it in front of Ruby.

"Copper of bones?"

"Hey, yeah! Thanks Mindy!"

The frustration was forgotten. Ruby held up the key, staring straight ahead. 

"Three…stones."

Over by one of the walls, Chaz leaned back. Mindy, standing to his left, where he'd started to lean, looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Sorry."

He leaned to his right, onto Tanisha's shoulder. The girl smiled at him, and the older members of the group hung back as the younger ones went absolutely mad looking for triple stones. 

Within a minute, Matilda had successfully tugged a layer of moss from one of the walls and uncovered something carved into it. 

"Three-"

She stopped to take a puff from her inhaler. 

"Guys! Three stones!"

"YES!"

Julio ran straight into the wall in his hurry. The group clustered, yelling.

Two teenagers were a little embarrassed by their younger brothers. Chaz, quietly, to no-one in particular, bothered to lament.

"Why couldn't I have had a little sister? If I had a sister…"

Tanisha nodded along. Mindy, calm and unbothered, interrupted what could have easily turned into a monologue. 

"Matilda and Ruby are going just as crazy as the rest of them. You'd still be here. Shut up and wait."

And indeed, everyone was now waiting. Staring, waiting, whispering. Watching, as Ruby attempted to use the copper of bones on the wall. There wasn't a keyhole to speak of. Currently, she was attempting to turn the key by slotting the eye sockets of the skull over various parts of the carving that stood out. The first two parts hadn't worked. There must have been dozens of combinations. As such, Matilda had already started huffing. It had been mistaken for more wheezing until Ruby had realised how annoyed her friend sounded. 

Julio was going to start literally bouncing off the walls. She didn't want an avalanche.

"Hey, guys, any suggestions?"

Matilda, who had slid down the wall and was now sitting (ill-advised) on the ground, on top of the moss she'd pulled off the carving, sounded sarcastic, but had spoken first.

"Try the middle one."

Oh, there we go. That worked. 

Sort of obvious. 

Well, if it got them further along. Closer to the treasure. All that stuff.

"Which way do we turn it?"

"Does it matter, Data?"

"Well, Mouth, if we turn it the wrong way there's a chance some big rocks will fall on us."

"Oh. Right. Which way do we turn it?"

Julio, now attempting to do a handstand, answered.

"Something west. I bet that's this."

"Which way is west?"

Matilda, still on the floor, got Duncan's compass from his belt and pointed. Counter-clockwise. 

It took Julio's best efforts-he was the strongest, he'd bashed a door in today, he got to do this-to turn the key. Something clicked. Mindy, somewhat cautiously, whisper-yelled from over on the other wall.

"Was that a good click or a bad click?"

The key was locked. It had locked the boy holding it to the wall. There was a second click.

"I can't let go of the key. Guys, I can't let go of-"

"Chunk, calm down!"

A third click, a fourth, a fifth, getting faster, starting to sound like a clock ticking. 

Something, like a marble rolling, was heard in the distance. It got faster, Duncan tried to tug Julio away from the wall, Jackson pressed his ear to the stone. 

Following the sound, Jackson looked up. Above their heads, a track had dropped down, and what might have been a giant marble was picking up speed along it. It went right over Tanisha, Chaz and Mindy. Jackson, much quieter than he probably should have been, warned the rest of the group, who hadn't seen it. 

"Look out."

Mindy was staring at the large marble. If we're going to say it correctly, the cannonball. She blinked a few times, trying to work out if her contacts were working, then nearly yelled.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's gonna fall on us!"

It didn't.

In fact, it passed over every single person present. At the end of the track, it dropped into a net.

The net yanked a rope.

The floor dropped out from underneath Duncan. 

There wasn't even time to yell.

Duncan, somewhat dimly, registered he was falling. 

He had a gadget for that. 

Okay, it was technically meant for the rare occasion when his zipline stopped working, and he wasn't sure how it would work here, but being picky wasn't an option right now. With any luck, it would still work.

Because he was definitely falling towards spikes.

Tanisha was the first one to start crying. Julio was the first one to peer over the new hole in the floor. Matilda was the first to scream. This didn't mean they were the only ones doing so, but it meant they were first. 

This meant that Tanisha was the first to collapse, Julio was the first to see the spikes, and Matilda was the first to almost hurl herself after him. 

She was held back, and so found herself leaning over the edge of the pit, staring at the spikes Julio had already seen. 

They were so far down. 

As such, Matilda was the second to start crying, just as the rest of them gathered around the edge of the pit. Tanisha was currently alternating between sobbing into Chaz's shoulder and Mindy's.

Julio was the first to say anything.

"He's gone."

Matilda almost screamed again. She didn't, because there wasn't enough air in her lings. She was barely taking shaky breaths, she couldn't scream. She wanted to. But she just couldn't. 

Jackson, as pale as a sheet, shook his head. 

"No, he's not gone, he can't be gone, he can't be, he's not going to be, I'm telling you, he's going to be absolutely-"

He didn't stop. Ruby attempted to remove emotion from the whole thing. 

"Duncan 'Data' Dewey is most likely dead, and our best plan of action is to move ahead."

Tanisha, who was now crying so violently she was on the verge of hysteria, shook her head so violently it looked like it was going to fall from her neck.

"No, no. He's not dead, and I'll tell you why."

She leaned over the pit, sticking her head as far into it as she dared. Chaz and Mindy held the back of her shirt.

"HE'S NOT ALLOWED TO DIE. YOU HEAR ME, DUNCAN DEWEY? YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE DEAD!"

"I hear you!"

It was faint, but it echoed. For a second time, Matilda almost flung herself into the damn pit. For a second time, she was held back. 

He was alive. He was alive. 

There is nothing that can quite describe feeling certain that someone you care about is dead, and then finding out they live another day. 

He came into view, then. Out from under a sort of sub-cavern on the way down. He looked up at the rest of them and grinned. 

He was a very, very long way down. 

But he was there. 

"How are you getting back?"

Ruby's question was only just loud enough. 

"I'm going to climb it!"

"YOU'RE GONNA DO WHAT?"

Duncan looked up at a mostly blank wall of stone and just sort of smiled. From the end of a sleeve, a particularly long piece of rope flew up, up, up, and just to the edge of the wall. It was close, but it was there, and the hook on the end stuck.

The rope wasn't particularly thick. A group of people looked at said rope and came to the conclusion it was absolutely going to snap. Tanisha started crying again. 

Duncan seemed unbothered. 

He clambered up the damn thing like his hands and feet were sticking to it. Faster and faster, until it looked like he was practically flying. Flying up a wall of rock on a thin piece of rope, as everyone else watched. 

Like magic or something.

He was up the top, with the rest of them, before anyone could really figure out how he was doing it. 

Tanisha hugged her brother until he was pretty sure his ribs were broken. He got many hugs within a short time period, a pat on the back, a hi-five. The door-thing they'd been attempting to open finally did. 

Slowly. Creakily. A little bit ridiculously.

More caverns. 

Most of them were through it quickly. They couldn't let it close.

Duncan hung back, collecting up his rope. Matilda helped. When the whole thing had been gathered up, they were still hanging back. 

She hadn't said anything yet. She was still figuring out quite what she wanted to say. 

Well. This wouldn't be perfect. But she'd try her best.

"That…was really cool."

"Uh, thanks."

"When…when did you get so cool?"

He didn't have an answer. He didn't need one. 

She darted forward and kissed the tip of his nose.

"I'm glad you're alive."

She raced after the rest of the group. 

He hung back for a second. He then stumbled after her. 

"Another one."

Ruby stared up at the skeleton. It was standing on a platform, a dagger sticking out of one eye socket. Like they'd been stabbed. The skeleton was also pointing. 

There were three tunnels ahead. Two of them a little higher than the one in the middle. Jackson wrinkled his nose at the pointing skeleton for a second.

"This one looks like it's supposed to be here."

"What?"

Mindy nodded.

"Yeah. He's telling us where to go, I think."

Ruby considered this, then looked down at the map. 

"It's not really clear…hey, Chunk, what does this one say?"

"Uh..."

Julio squinted at the words for a second. 

"Something…something…okay, this one boils down to pick the right one or you die."

"We die?"

"Or…get very lost or something. I dunno. This is just my best guess."

Chaz, resuming the authority he was supposed to (technically) have, gave the next order.

"Well, while you all figure out where we're going, I am going to sit down."

Tanisha followed him. The two of them sat in one of the room's corners, while everyone else looked at the three tunnels. 

Jackson tilted his head sideways.

"Hey, if you look at it hard enough, it starts looking like-"

"Shut it, Mouth."

They all knew what it looked like, anyway.

It looked like a skull. 

Reassuring. 

Mindy glanced over her shoulder at Tanisha and Chaz.

"And neither of you are going to help us at all?"

Tanisha, a little giggly and currently in Chaz's lap, replied.

"Nope!"

"You're both morons."

No answer. So Mindy looked back at the skulls. 

Matilda looked at the skeleton for a second, then at the door. 

"You know, from here it looks like he's pointing to door number three."

"Sweet, off we go!"

Julio started walking. Matilda caught the back of his jacket.

"Hold it. I said from here."

"Yeah, so?"

"Mouth, I think we need to see what he sees."

"You're definitely too short for that."

Jackson got punched. Duncan stood in the right spot, and Matilda climbed onto his shoulders again. It was his turn, sure, but it was her theory. She covered one eye. The same one as the skeleton. Followed where he was pointing. Again.

"From his perspective, we should go through door number two."

"That seems about right."

"Well, into the skull it is!"

"Shut up, Mouth-lovebirds, get a damn move on! Everyone! Through the second door! You too, Ruby."

Ruby was listening to Mindy, but she hung back for a second anyway.

Watching her friends disappear into the skull.

She almost gulped. The back of her neck prickled. 

She followed them. 

Jackson was the first one into the next cavern. It was easily larger than any of the previous ones. Mindy looked out into it and made a comment.

"It looks like the docks."

It did. The oddest docking bay any of them had ever seen. Jackson, a little peeved he hadn't been the one to point it out, followed it up.

"Well, there's no water here. Probably hasn't been in decades."

Mindy wrinkled her nose at him. 

"There's water. Look, see?"

She pointed. 

She pointed to the other side of the room, where a few mostly makeshift-looking rafts where tied to a rock, bobbing in a singular stream. 

Ruby looked at the map again.

"That's the way we're headed."

"Well, since it's the only way outta here-"

This was debatable. The door behind them hadn't closed yet.

"I would have guessed as much."

"No, you wouldn't have."

Duncan looked behind them, sort of nervous.

"Maybe we could just go back?"

There were footfalls. Just quietly, a long way behind them. But there was someone, and they were running.

"No, we couldn't."

Matilda grabbed his coat-sleeve and tugged him behind her. The rest of the Nerds followed, scrambled with the ropes, and with Mindy's guidance, managed to set themselves adrift on the largest, steadiest-looking raft.

There were maybe two minutes of almost-silence, drifting. It wasn't fast. Not very. Sort of slow, bumpy, a little bit odd. Conversations sprung up. It seemed sort of peaceful. Almost safe. For another ten minutes, maybe, the group drifted slowly along a tunnel, talking, talking. 

The current picked up. 

The tunnel widened.

Things got bumpier, and everyone started clustering away from the edges as water sprayed up. 

There was a drop.

It wasn't particularly far down, but Duncan nearly went completely overboard, which caused a lot of screaming. He didn't, but now the entire group was soaked and Tanisha was holding on to his backpack.

Everything was spinning. Julio was muttering something not unlike the sort of thing Mama Rosa told the characters in her stories, Ruby was trying to keep the map dry, Duncan was scrambling with some gadget or another. Mindy, leaning over one side, was attempting to make the raft steady again. So far, it was just getting water in her face.

They dropped again, further this time, but everyone grabbed hold of each other and when they stopped falling, they found themselves in mist.

A lake-or some other body of water-stretched out around them for further than they could see. Mist hung around them, covering up every wall and making it seem like the lake stretched on forever. 

"Where are we?"

"Disneyland, Mouth, where do you think?"

Chaz hit his brother's shoulder. Probably wasn't the wisest choice, as it made everything rock, but no-one fell.

Ruby looked at the map-wet, despite her best efforts-and told them quite honestly that she had no idea which direction they were supposed to be going into.

So, it seemed, they were just going to drift.

At first, there were attempts to steer them somewhere, attempts to get in some direction, but they didn't seem to be working very well, so they stopped. They were still drifting.

Slowly, slowly.

Duncan was testing gadget after gadget. They malfunctioned. 

The water had broken them. Every last one.

"I'm useless."

"What? Data, what are you talking about?"

"I'm broken. See, look at this."

He raised a sleeve, attempted to fire something. Nothing happened. Julio frowned at him.

"What are you talking…just because your gadgets don't work?"

"Well, yeah. What sort of other useful could I possibly be?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

If they had been on dry land, Matilda would have stood up to illustrate the importance of what she was about to say. Matilda settled for going a bit higher on her knees.

"You're wicked useful. And smart! You made all those things in the first place, didn't you? And you'll make them again! You'll make them again but BETTER. You're just about the most useful person I've ever met."

There was a general murmur of agreement. Matilda went vaguely pink-ish and settled back down again. No-one really noticed when he reached out and grabbed her hand, or, if they did, they didn't say anything. 

Tanisha, who was now wearing Chaz's hoodie and leaning into him, whispered something.

"Does…does anyone have any stories, or something?"

Jackson opened his mouth. Mindy punched him. And, because she was the one everyone was now looking at, she started talking.

"My dad used to take me out on ships all the time. That's what he used to do. Fishing and sailing and whatever, even though he wanted to fly. In planes, and helicopters, and whatever else. He liked flying, but he never really got to chance to do it, so he fished instead, and it was never enough money for my mom. She used it all up. She sent me to dancing and piano and a million other things, and she bought herself gems and jewels, and dad had to stay out almost all night, on his boat, just to keep her in designer shoes. And…he'd still take me out, every time the water was calm enough. I always liked that the best. Bobbing on the calm water…and just him, and me, all alone, with mom and her hairspray far behind us. He didn't take me out when there were storms, but he still went himself. I'd stare out the windows and I'd wait. And…one time he didn't come back. And then, for a little while, I hated the water. But I couldn't hate it, not really, and so I went to the docks and I got myself an after-school job. And I wore my dad's old fishing overalls. And everyone started calling me a nerd, and a loser, than, because I smelled funny, and I dressed funny, and I forgot all the dance lessons. I like being a nerd better, though. And I like being out on the water…even like this."

There was something-maybe a few metres from them. A ripple. Something underneath the water rising up. More distractions. More talking. Jackson, this time, was not stopped.

"Once upon a time, this boy found a monkey paw."

Mindy groaned.

"Not this again."

Jackson, undeterred, kept on talking.

"And so he took it to his parents, and he told them to make wishes with it. He said anything they asked for would come true."

They had all heard this one before. It was one of Jackson's favourites. Chaz was mouthing the words.

"And so, they told each other not to be too greedy with it. To wish for just enough money to pay off the house. Ten thousand."

Tanisha yawned rather loudly. It wasn't entirely due to the story. It was also because she was tired.

But mostly the story.

"And so, that's what they did. The boy's mother held the paw real tight, and she said please, give us ten thousand dollars. Give us the money to pay off our house. The next day, someone comes up to the boy's father, while he's working. He works in a factory, and so does his son."

Chaz got bored of mouthing the words. He closed his eyes.

"And the person says, there's been an accident. Your son's been killed. However, you'll get the life insurance. You'll get ten thousand dollars. The boy's father says they've gotta be wrong, it can't be his son, let him see, but the guy says the corpse is so mangled that there's no way he'll recognise it. People saw it happen. It was his son."

Julio started snoring. Stretched out along one side of their huddle. Completely asleep.

"And that night, they're crying, the boy's father and his wife, they're crying and crying, and she grabs the paw and she screams, she screams give me back my son. And nothing happens. Nothing at all."

Ruby slumped over. What time was it? How long had they been down here?

"And for days and nights, there's silence. Nothing. But then, one terrible day, there's a sound. There's a sound outside the door."

Mindy was the only one still listening. Everyone else was asleep or very, very close to it.

"Like something dragging itself up to the doorstep. Something awful. And it rings the doorbell."

Mindy rolled her eyes, but she didn't interrupt him. He would keep talking no matter what she did, now. She didn't feel tired. She'd done more in the dance classes she'd stumbled through, when she was smaller.

"And the mother rushes for it, but the father gets a horrible feeling. That's not their son. That's something mangled. That's something horrible. Unrecognisable. He grabs the paw again, and he wishes as hard as he can-don't ever let us see it, don't let it come in, put it back, put what used to be our son back. When the mother opens the door? There's no son. Just the mist."

Just the mist. Just the mist, and the fog, and their raft. Nothing else in the whole world. 

That's what it felt like. 

That's what it felt like, right up until they saw the searchlight. The Nesbitts, on a raft smaller than theirs, looking for something. The smaller raft drifted away in the fog.

They're not alone. They're being chased. There's something important out here somewhere. 

They just gotta get to it first. 

When the rest of the group opened their eyes again, it was to Jackson happily speaking like a tour guide.

"And if you look to your left, you'll see the land we've drifted to! We're here, everybody! All…offboard?"

"No, Mouth."

"Well, I tried, didn't I?"

They found themselves on a beach. Still shrouded with fog, and the sand looking grey-ish, but it was land, so they all helped each other stumble onto it. Ruby pulled the map back out. 

They set off down the beach.

There was another rockface, and another tunnel. They set off through it. 

There were footsteps, behind them.

Running. They started running. 

They were still talking. But less. They ran, pulling each other along, and they gasped out words. They got to a bridge.

"Well, that doesn't look safe."

Tanisha eyed it with distain. A single log, wedged in between the two walls, fast-moving water running underneath it. It didn't look safe, but they could hear the Nesbitts behind them. They started across it.

"Mouth, I swear, just hold my damn arm."

"You're the one who made such a big deal about hating me."

Ruby, attached to Jackson's other arm, yelled at him.

"I don't want to fall, hold onto her."

"I don't hate you!"

"Well, sure seems like-"

Matilda, on the other side of Ruby, joined in.

"No-one hates anybody, hold her damn hand and keep moving, Mouth!"

Duncan, at the end of the strange procession, almost slipped. Jackson groaned, overdramatically, and held onto Mindy.

They made it to the other side. In the middle, Duncan stopped and rose onto his heels.

"What are you doing?"

"Slick shoes!"

"Huh?"

"To make people following me slip. Following us…slip."

"Well, hurry up, I have to stand here while you do whatever this is."

"I'm done! Let's go!"

The next room. Right ahead.

Some people didn't even bother dropping hands. 

Behind them, the Nesbitts made it to the bridge, and Simon and Albert began arguing about who was going to make their way across first. Their mother shoved them both.

Simon, muttering several unsavoury things under his breath, ended up being first. He made it halfway across, slipped and fell onto his face. He knocked his front teeth sort of loose. His mother laughed, his brother joined in. His brother than also slipped, and fell completely off the log. He ended up holding on, just, as the water attempted to sweep away the lower half of his body.

His mother called them lazy and incompetent. She made her way to help them. She slipped and fell.

"Chunk! Quick! This one, translate, now, right now!"

"Uh! Ugh! Give me the map, I can't read it through you-"

"Hurry! What the hell do we do now?"

There was another skeleton. And something…odd. An instrument, maybe, made of twigs and bones, spreading around the skeleton, encircling it. 

It was odd-looking. 

"Uh! You have to…it's music. There's some notes, right here. It's like a piano. You gotta play all the right notes. Or…die, I think."

Ruby grabbed the map back.

"Well, who would have guessed."

There was more swearing from behind them. 

"Does…can anyone play the piano?"

Mindy, tentatively, raised her hand.

"Well, here!"

Ruby tried to hand the map off. Mindy didn't take it. 

"I haven't played the piano in years."

Julio shoved her forward.

"You've played at all!"

There was silence. You could hear the deliberation, as Mindy glanced between the notes on the paper and the keys. You could also hear the swearing. It was getting more creative.

Mindy played a key.

Just the one. 

There wasn't anything special about the key, but after a few seconds of waiting for something to fall, the echo of it started to sound like relief. Mindy, somewhat bolstered by this, played a second key. 

Part of the floor disappeared from under their feet. About a third of it. It was, to be exact, the part Julio and Duncan were standing on. Tanisha was the closest and managed to catch their arms, pull them back. There appeared to be a very, very, very large cavern waiting underneath the floor. 

The fear suddenly became very, very real.

"Oh, hurry up-"

"Mouth, I gotta concentrate, get back!"

"Yeah, Mouth, get back."

"Chaz, I'm just telling her she'd gotta hurry up because we're either gonna fall or the guys chasing us are gonna get us!"

"Well, stop telling her that!"

There were five notes written. Mindy pushed two of them-the right ones-in quick succession, then hovered her fingers over a third. Tanisha rushed her this time-

"Mindy, I can hear them, I don't wanna die!"

Too quick. Only the middle of the floor remained, everyone crammed together. Mindy could hear everyone breathing down her damn neck.

"Get away from me!"

"In case you haven't noticed, we really can't."

"Oh, shut up already, Mouth-"

The last key. Almost absentmindedly. It wasn't anything special, but it took on a very gospel-choir edge when accompanied by violent echoing and a pathway past the skeleton's piano lowering itself from the roof.

"Oh, thank god!"

"You did it!"

Tanisha would have grabbed Mindy and started jumping up and down if not for her fear of the floor collapsing. Her tone of voice carried the sentiment well.

"I did it!"

"That's real great, you guys, but we need to go! Now!"

Mindy handed the map back to Ruby, and the group ran their way out of the room. Ruby didn't move.

"You're not going to beat us, you know."

The Nesbitts looked terrifying, lurking at the entrance. 

"Why do you say that?"

The woman almost sounded sweet. The edge in her voice had all but disappeared. Her smile was soft.

She was holding a knife, and she was pointing it straight at Ruby.

"We're smarter, and we're quicker, and you don't have a way across this room!"

Before the three could ask Ruby what she meant by that, she slammed a handful of keys and lept. At just the right second. Behind her, the last of the ground crumbled, taking the skeleton and the piano with it. 

"Sorry."

The sorry was for the skeleton. 

Ruby was running as fast as she could, because these people had guns. She was already going down what could have been a waterslide, if not for the many rocks, that everything caught up with her and she realised she was on what could have been a waterslide.

It was a little terrifying for all of them. 

After all, you generally want at least a few minutes of forewarning before you are plummeting through a tunnel, at the mercy of a violent current. You also generally want to be wearing a swimsuit, rather than being fully clothed, and you don't want all your surroundings to be made of stone. You don't want to have to lean and dodge and push on the walls to avoid the sharper rocks, jutting out, threatening to tear you to pieces.

If you were Matilda, you would also have liked to be able to grab your damn inhaler. If you were Ruby, you would also have liked a waterproof casing or something for the map you were holding. If you were Julio, you would have also wanted a snack.

You get the point.

The not-really-a-waterslide spit them out in another cavern, into fairly deep water. They spluttered and coughed and forced their heads above the water, dragging themselves up as soon as they realised they were able to stand.

They saw it then.

When confronted with a pirate ship, clearly centuries old, but almost perfect, almost majestic, so massively large you feel dwarfed, so incredibly cool and better than any pirate ship you could have imagined, there seemed to be a fairly simple default reaction.

Chaz yelled the first curse that came into his head at the top of his lungs. 

Everyone else joined in, gobsmacked, cursing and yelling, climbing over one another for a better look. It was really the perfect storybook pirate ship. 

The sort of ship that made you dream of adventuring on the high seas, of finding treasure, of being incredible and fearsome and legendary.

"We've done it."

Ruby sounded respectful. Awed.

"He left it here. For anyone brave and smart enough to get through his puzzles."

Jackson scoffed, starting towards it.

"Or lucky enough. It all came down to luck."

They splashed through the water, which wasn't really deep enough to swim through, but also wasn't really shallow enough for running. There was falling over. Also yelling. Further cursing. Chaz was regretting cursing in the first place. He'd started a trend. 

There was a rope, dangling off one side of the ship. Long. Knots along it. 

They scrambled up, helping each other, yelling the whole damn way. 

"Oh, god, don't get a splinter from this damn thing-"

"We'll be careful, Chaz!"

The deck was filled with things. None of them looked particularly valuable, but that didn't make it any less cool. 

Cannonballs and cannons, and swords and knives and a skeleton with jewelled daggers sticking out of it-

Well. 

They went for the skeleton. There were so many skeletons in this cave.

Matilda, standing on tiptoe, reached up and pulled one of the daggers from the skeleton. She showed it to the group. 

A red gem, the size of a fist, was stuck right through the handle. It glittered in the dim light.

"If that's real, how much do you think it's worth?"

"I don't have a clue."

Ruby was still awed. And attempting to remember how much various gemstones would cost. While everyone stared at the skeleton, Julio had found something like a trapdoor and started going through it, headfirst. He was now stuck. 

He alerted the rest of the group to this by yelling.

"Chunk, what the hell have you done?"

Chaz got an extremely muffled answer. If it were more legible, it probably would have been something about ignoring that and getting him out of here. His request was obliged, though it had less to do with what he actually said and more to do with him blocking what happened to be one of the only ways into the floor below. He was pulled out, and brought some of the ship with him. 

Tanisha lowered herself into the hole left before anyone thought to stop her, so the rest of them followed. There was something about being on a pirate ship that made you brave. Or at least bold-ish. 

The room they found themselves in had most of the same stuff they'd seen on the deck. It was just a little darker. Naturally, they started exploring. 

Ruby was following the map again. Everyone else was looking for cool things. 

Matilda challenged Jackson to a swordfight. The two swords she'd found were confiscated by Chaz. 

Ruby came across a door. 

An inscription, in some of the curliest script she'd ever seen, was carved into it. 

"HEY CHUNK!"

"IS THERE ANOTHER PARAGRAPH ON THE MAP?"

"NO! JUST COME HERE!"

He did, crashing into what was probably the minimum amount of things.

Or, uh, above the minimum. 

It wasn't that many things.

Ruby gestured to the curly script. 

"You…intruders, be careful. Crushing death and soaked grief. With blood, from the…burglar thief! It's the same one! It's the same one!"

"I thought it might be. HEY, EVERYONE, I THINK I FOUND IT!"

"MORE SWORDS?"

"MAT, NO, GET OVER HERE."

Opening the door seemed to be a moment they all needed to be there for. The proof. The treasure. The end of the adventure. 

Something important. 

So they were all standing there, waiting, as Ruby pushed the door open.

"…Wow."

That summed it up pretty well.

There was a table. 

Long, like the sort you'd serve a banquet on. 

It was covered in gold and jewels and jewellery. 

At the head of the table, watching over it all, there was a skeleton wearing an eyepatch. 

"We found him."

"…we found everything."

"WE'RE GONNA KEEP OUR HOUSES!"

They swarmed the table like flies, and in a few minutes pretty much everyone was wearing a jewelled necklace or a ring or a handful of bracelets, stuffing their pockets with coins. Laughing. Singing, even. Every pocket, every spare space, was stuffed with tiny gems and coins until there couldn't possibly be room for anything else. Matilda tipped out the bag of marbles she'd been keeping in one of her pockets and threw in a handful of gems, before going back to helping fill Duncan's backpack. She ended up putting the bag in too. Both her and Julio were helping, and attempting to convince the boy to leave some of the malfunctioning gadgets. He happened to be ignoring specifically this. 

Tanisha was attempting to use a string of pearls to pull her hair out of her face. She was not succeeding. 

Ruby happened to be slowly moving along the table, getting closer to the end. She noticed this when she looked up and came face-to-face with the skeleton. 

There was something important-looking about this particular skeleton. He was sitting in the chair, upright, gazing over everything. In front of him, a set of weights were balanced, what had to be the best jewels in the whole place on either end. 

Ruby didn't take them. It would have been disrespectful, somehow. And the thought of it make her ears hot.

In front of the skeleton, there was a letter. Covered in ink blots, and somewhat scribbly. 

"…Chunk?"

"Another one?"

"Yeah. It's a letter. From One-Eyed Willy."

Everyone was listening as Julio stumbled over the words.

"To…oh, I reckon this says to whom it may concern. Or, that, in so many words, it doesn't translate perfectly-"

"Please just tell everyone what it says."

"Uh! To whom it may concern-or something-congratulations. You've beat my puzzles and you've earned my treasure. Well, sort of. That's not the way he's put it, something about-"

"No."

"Fine! Okay, treasure, good job, hope it took you a while…okay, not really, he's just saying…he's glad he lived on. He's glad someone took the time to solve his puzzles. He hopes…he hopes it was fun?"

"What?"

"I dunno. And he says…that he worked really hard, and he hopes we won't…uh, have to give up the treasure before we can do anything with it. If he got the chance to use it…no, I think that's right. If he got the chance to use it, he would have tried to free slaves and feed orphans and do everything he could. He hopes…he hopes we'll make good use of it. Here's to…here's to more adventures."

It was odd. Despite the way it had been delivered, there was something about that letter, the last sentence in particular, that made it sound like there was a pirate captain standing there, living and breathing and telling them something. It sounded like he'd raised a glass to them, an invisible toast, told them they'd done well and someday they'd do better. 

They couldn't dwell on it. They were being chased.

Ruby took over again, spreading the map out.

"So, we'll go this way, through these tunnels, and we'll drop coins here so the Nesbitts will follow this path, and then we'll go straight to the police station. Sound like a good plan?"

"Sounds…like a very good plan."

The voice was coming from a short woman, holding a gun, her sons on her either side.

"But, I'm very sorry to inform you, you will not be going through with it."

They'd been lined up along the deck within two minutes. An almost-straight line. It was astounding how orderly kids could be while held at gunpoint.

"Everybody empty your pockets!"

Everybody did.

There was grumbling. Muttering. But there were guns, and swords, and even though Mat had about five jewelled daggers in her jacket, she didn't know how to use them. An unreasonable amount of treasure was now on the deck. Mrs. Nesbitt looked at them for a second, then at the treasure. 

"You're awfully quiet."

She directed it at Jackson.

Everyone looked at Jackson.

Everyone else had at least been muttering. Jackson had been completely and utterly silent.

Jackson smiled with his mouth closed.

"You're the one they call…Mouth, aren't you?"

Another smile.

"Open your trap, boy."

Jackson shook his head, still smiling. His brother looked at him like he was insane. One of the two men, the one with the buckteeth, almost hissed his words.

"You will open your mouth, and you will do it now."

Jackson's mouth fell open. He looked almost shocked about this. 

Quite a lot of jewels fell out. There may have been a few gasps. When the jewels stopped falling, Jackson closed his mouth again. Mrs. Nesbitt yelled, stepped forward, and forced his jaw back open. 

She pulled out a ridiculously long string of pearls. 

The rest of the Nerds stared at Jackson. 

"You know, I don't think I can trust you kids. One of you is coming with me, and the rest of you are going to be tied up out here. So, who'll be coming with me?"

There was absolute silence. 

Mrs. Nesbitt squinted at them for a second, then grabbed one of Julio's arms and pulled him up. She marched off, leaving everyone else to be tied up.

There probably would have been more yelling, normally. 

Expect, well, again.

Guns.

Once those above deck had been tied up, the two men also headed below deck, to where their mother was trying very, very hard to interrogate Julio. 

The problem was he was confessing to all the wrong things. She was regretting not having specified.

"…and the worst thing…the worst thing I ever did…I was with these bad kids, and they were awful, but I had…I had to, I had to get out of the house, because it was so damn empty, and they weren't that bad, not really, but they did such bad stuff, and they made me do it, they made me, I swear, and we made fake puke, which was a bad idea, but it smelled real, and it looked real, and we made so much, there was so much of it…"

Mrs. Nesbitt had her head in her hands. She'd asked him to stop talking four times. He wouldn't.

"…and they swore, they swore nothing too bad would happen, and we went up on a balcony, we went up so high, and there was a crowd, a real big crowd, and we all made noises, these awful noises…"

Julio spent almost a full minute making retching noises. Mrs. Nesbitt kept her head in her hands. Her sons fell about laughing.

"…and then we threw it off the balcony! All over the people! All of them! And that's not even the worst part, because after we'd thrown it, all these people, they started throwing up all over the place! Like, like, like…"

"DO NOT START UP AGAIN."

Mrs. Nesbitt was brandishing a sword fairly desperately. Julio did not start up again.

"Boy, I wanted you to tell me one thing. I want to know what you and your little friends have done with my son."

"…both your sons are right there. We haven't done anything."

"NO! Boy, you will tell me where my son is and you will tell me now."

Above deck, the son in question whirred back to life.

"…all your stupid fault, Mouth!"

"Chaz, dear brother, I honestly don't know how you came to that conclusion."

"Shut up, Mouth!"

They'd been tied up sort of haphazardly, unevenly, in weird clumps that didn't seem logical but weren't exactly escapable either. Ruby was trying to get the map out of her pocket, on the off-chance it had something to say about this, but even she was doing it a bit half-heartedly. She wouldn't be able to understand it anyway. And she got the feeling she was being a little bit annoying. 

Duncan's backpack made an odd noise. Everyone silently dismissed it as another gadget malfunctioning.

"What d'ya think they're gonna make us do next, guys?"

"Don't start again, Mouth."

"I think they'll make us walk the plank, like a pirate movie."

"Don't be stupid."

"Mindy, I would bet you real money that they make us walk the plank."

Duncan was pretty sure something in his backpack was moving. What would be moving?

"You know what, you're on."

"Shake on it."

"I would, but I can't exactly reach you right now."

Jackson paused.

"…I knew that."

Matilda, who was tied to the back of Duncan, attempted to shuffle away from his bag.

"Is your backpack rigged to explode or something?"

"No, of course not."

"Then what's it doing?"

"I've got no idea."

Tanisha slumped sideways, which pulled several others in the same general direction.

"At this point, how much worse could an explosion make everything?"

"A lot worse. So much worse. You've jinxed us, it's going to explode."

At this point, the thing making Duncan's bag flew out.

Actually flew.

It was small, and metal, and it was floating above them all.

"…uhm, hello."

It set loose a shower of sparks and fell back to the ground.

"Goodbye."

Mrs. Nesbitt was using a sword to point at things.

"…about as tall as him, or he can be as small as that, small as a mouse…"

"I haven't seen your son!"

Duncan was attempting to shuffle himself towards the thing that had flown out of his backpack. It wasn't quite working the way it was supposed to.

"When did you invent that, anyway?"

"I didn't, I found it, back at the restaurant."

The restaurant felt like ages ago now. How long had it been, really?

"Well, why's it broken?"

"I would imagine it was all the water, Tanisha."

"Right. Why don't you fix it?"

"I'd need my arms."

They stared at the thing. 

"…it really did fly, huh."

"We all saw it."

Mrs. Nesbitt felt like she was failing, just a little, as an interrogator.

"No-one else could have taken him!"

"You know, I think I want ice cream. Does anyone else want ice cream? I feel like after the adventure we've all had-"

Mindy was attempting to kick the Thing.

"It could be evil, I'm telling you, if it came from the Nesbitts."

"Well, if it's evil, all the more reason to not kick it."

Chaz thought he was being reasonable. Mindy did not agree.

"If it's evil I'll have to fight it, won't I? Might as well start now."

The thing lit up.

A blue light blinked, then a grid of light was projected onto the clump of kids and teenagers. There was yelling about this, and at least one 'we're gonna die!'. Jackson attempted to calm the rest of them down.

"It's scanning us. Robots do it all the time in spy movies."

"This isn't a spy movie! This is real life and the robot has…lasers or something!"

The robot seemed to think this was a suggestion, as it stopped with the grid and started with lasers.

Well, a laser, anyway.

A laser that cut neatly through the rope that had tied Matilda and Duncan back-to-back, and also cut a rather large gash in Duncan's backpack, but mostly the rope thing.

The robot then stopped, released more sparks, and turned itself off.

"…I don't think it's evil."

Mindy squinted at it.

"You never know."

Mrs. Nesbitt had now banged her head into the wall more times then was necessary and absolutely more times then was healthy.

"Enough! Enough of the stories! Enough of the candy! Enough of it all! One of you, tie the boy up. We're heading for treasure."

Well, that settled that. 

Above deck, Matilda was attempting to undo the knots tying everyone else, and Duncan was fussing with the robot. 

"Mat, you absolutely can't use your teeth on that. It's not helping."

There was a very muffled exclamation.

It was probably 'try and stop me'. However, no-one understood it, and they were still tied up. Jackson, who had one leg tied at about the same height as his brother's ribs, suggested getting one of the jewelled daggers she'd had to drop earlier. 

"Right. Right, those."

By the time Matilda had cut through the ropes holding everyone else together, Duncan proclaimed he had fixed the robot. Everyone clustered around it to look.

"It was just some crossed wires, really, no big deal, but it should work properly now, I believe, so…"

"Duncan Dewey, turn the thing on."

"Sorry, Tanisha."

He did.

The robot began whirring, then lit up so violently blue the group had to stop looking at it. 

When they looked again, the robot looked like a man. 

Mindy kicked it. The robot fell over.

"Well, one of these doors has to be it, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, Ma, but we don't want to look for too long, the brats will escape."

"Calm down, they won't. It'll be here somewhere."

The robot had been pulled back to its feet. Mindy had apologised. 

"Again, it's quite all right, Miss."

"Benjamin…"

"As I have informed you all, that is indeed my name."

"What's happening?"

"Well, you see, I was designed for an agency of spies, but was then taken by the Nesbitts, who were attempting to reprogram me, but failing and completely removing a good deal of my intelligence, reducing me to the level of a toddler-"

"No, not that bit. You're glowing again."

"Ah, yes. It was bound to happen. I must thank you children again for repairing me, but I'm afraid that I'm still malfunctioning."

Duncan grabbed his toolbox again.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm waterlogged and re-learning a great deal. You may have to just…wait this one out."

"So, you can't get any more water on you?"

"I don't believe so, no."

"What are you learning?"

"…currently, I appear to be studying various sword fights from movies."

"…Wicked."

The Nesbitts completely ignored every warning on the walls, bursting into One-Eyed Willy's room like they owned the place.

They didn't. They couldn't have. 

They grabbed as much as they could get their hands on, even that at the skeleton's place. 

Greedy. Desperate. 

They even snatched the jewels from the scales. Anything. Anything.

They set something in motion. An anchor that had held the ship in place for centuries and centuries, slowly, slowly, slowly started to shift. 

"So, you're…on our side?"

"On the side of good."

"…but is that us?"

"Well, I suppose."

"Oh, okay."

"If you children would step to the side, just here…"

A rock dropped from the ceiling, where Chaz had been standing a second before.

"…The Nesbitts have started an avalanche."

The Nesbitts in question ran out then, arms full. Mrs. Nesbitt dropped her own armful the second she saw Benjamin. 

"My boy. There you are-"

"M'mam, I'll ask you to keep away from these children."

"What?"

She was attempting to circle the robot, but every step was matched, keeping them on equal playing field.

"I was your creator. Your mother. Don't you remember?"

The children were trying to get a better look, held back by Benjamin. 

"You almost destroyed me."

He sounded emotionless. An odd thing to say of a robot-shouldn't that be the default? But it wasn't, not really, and now there was something odd about him.

"Oh, but I cared for you, we all did, we wanted you better. We worked so hard."

"You chained me up."

A yell. One of the woman's sons-the skinnier one, with the buckteeth-had attacked Benjamin, striking a leg with one of the swords. The robot overbalanced. 

The Nesbitts charged forward. Benjamin spoke to the children.

"Go! Get your friend!"

"CHUNK!"

Some of them had managed to forget. They didn't now. Every one of them ran. Find Julio. Then get back here. Help Benjamin. But get Julio first.

The ship was built like a maze.

He was so outnumbered.

Was Julio yelling?

He'd need a sword, or they'd damage him further.

"HEY CHUNK!"

There it was. Glinting. He could still beat them.

"HEY YOU GUYS!"

Benjamin pulled the sword to him, then flipped himself to his feet. 

Julio had been tied into a chair. The room was locked. The door had now been broken, and Julio was now free.

"Oh, you guys, it was so scary, they kept telling me that I had to tell them about the bad stuff I'd done, but I told it wrong and they flipped-"

Ruby frowned.

"Were they asking you about anything in particular?"

"Uh, the lady said something about her son, I think."

Jackson nodded wisely. 

"Ah, yes, the robot son Duncan stole."

"I didn't steal anything!"

"Robot what?"

"We'll fill you in on a second, I'm pretty sure there's a swordfight happening and I'm not missing it."

"Wha-"

The group ran out. Julio found himself caught up in it.

"Mat! A swordfight? What?"

It made sense…or, well, something, once they got to the ship's deck again.

"Oh. Robot son, swordfight. Cool."

It was cool. There was dim light, catching the metal of the swords, of Benjamin, and it was the sort of outmatched you'd expect, in the opposite direction. There was no way any one of the Nesbitts could have taken Benjamin on, but together, they put up a fight. 

It was sort of a spectacle. Sort of incredible, even.

One of them would charge forward, he'd counter, knock them away, then a second, from above, and he'd block it and he'd keep going, the third and the first at once, from opposite sides, but he leapt back and they collided. The sort of organised anarchy that, if you didn't know any better, could have been choreographed. 

The Nerds were in something not unlike awe. 

Benjamin, moving fast, managed to throw both the men overboard. 

It worked well. 

Him, against Mrs. Nesbitt, who was beginning to look as if she regretted everything. 

"Oh, my boy, my son, your own mother?"

"You aren't my mother."

"Oh, but I tried, didn't I? I sang for you!"

Benjamin was silent. Remembering? Pondering? Mrs. Nesbitt moved forward, whispering something. Singing. She wasn't good at singing. It was too quick. Desperate. 

It sounded broken, but it honestly looked like it was working.

Benjamin didn't even move.

"Oh, see, didn't I try?"

Was Benjamin broken?

"WHAT THE HELL, MAN?"

Jackson was loud. Mrs. Nesbitt spun. Benjamin didn't move. Ruby commanded, sounding for all the world like she had a battalion behind her instead of a bunch of Nerds.

"GET HER!"

They swarmed forward. Mrs. Nesbitt had dropped her sword as she walked to Benjamin. A mistake.

She was tackled to the ground before she could reach for her gun. 

But they didn't really know what they were doing. 

She shimmied a knife out of her sleeve and then it was at Matilda's throat. 

The girl wasn't still. She was screaming, she was kicking, but the knife was cold and she was scared, small. 

"Get back! All of you!"

They did. One or two had to be pulled, but they got back.

Benjamin was still unmoving.

"You know, I always wanted to be a pirate."

She was walking now, heading for the side of the boat.

"Today, I'm going to get to do my favourite part of all that. Today, sweetheart, you'll be walking the plank."

"No-no I wo-"

"Don't start, girlie. You don't want to."

Matilda was wheezing. It was getting worse.

There was a hiss.

"She won't be able to breathe. We have to get her."

"Well, we can't!"

Whispers. Mrs. Nesbitt was laughing. Cackling. 

"That's it, step out there."

Matilda was shaking. Barely breathing. 

"One more step."

Matilda fell.

Benjamin whirred back to life.

Despite several people grabbing at him, Duncan Dewey ran straight off the damn plank after Matilda. 

Mrs. Nesbitt was held over Benjamin's head. 

The stones started falling. 

Julio yelled something.

"AVALANCHE!"

They'd forgotten about what Benjamin had mentioned earlier.

And then everything was falling. 

It felt like a battlefield. 

Benjamin, perhaps malfunctioning, went right over the side of the boat, which left a group of Nerds standing on a deck. 

Jackson, with an extraordinary amount of sense, went straight for the anchor. It was too heavy for him. He didn't stop trying. 

His brother was behind him. The two of them got it up further. Not up. Further. 

And then they were all pulling at it, staring over, looking for Matilda and Duncan and Benjamin, as ahead of them the cavern burst itself open. 

The water out there was deeper. Matilda was still wheezing when she managed to catch Duncan, but she did catch him. He already had the spare inhaler he kept in his backpack out. 

She'd dropped hers somewhere.

Huh.

They made it to the rope again when the ship started moving, which meant they ended up holding onto the rope as it sailed out, while their friends celebrated above. 

It was dawn.

They all made it to shore. Their families were there within minutes, as were a pretty decent amount of cop cars. There had already been searches. 

Mindy sat alone, the only one without relatives fussing over her. She was grinning, though, widely.

Jackson left his dad talking to Chaz and went to sit with her.

She spoke first.

"Uh, thanks."

"What for?"

"The quick thinking. With the anchor. Probably saved us all."

"Well, wow. Thank you. A real moment."

"I owe you money now, don't I?"

"Well, she only made Mat walk the plank, and we didn't shake on it…"

"Jackson, your voice is kind of nice. Y'know. When your mouth isn't screwing it up."

They were both laughing. 

"Yeah? Well, your looks are kind of pretty. When your face isn't screwing it up."

She snorted. Then leaned down, cupped his face, and kissed him.

He very nearly fell over.

"I baked for you while I worried."

"Mama, you didn't ha-wow, two pies! Thank you so much!"

Avery was angrier than either of his children had ever seen him.

"I swear, you're both grounded until you're-"

"Mom, Dad, we're both fine, we promise, can we-"

"Mom, really, you can let go of me now-"

Ruby's parents had started hugging her when they'd got to her and they hadn't let go yet. Her brother tugged on her pigtails.

"…and the map led us right to-ouch, Noah-right to this room with sand, right?..."

A car pulled up.

A man in a suit stepped out, his son right behind him.

Mr. Jones sighed and stepped towards Mr. Bealer Sr., who held out a pen and a contract.

"You can't run, Jones."

"I wasn't running."

"You could have fooled me."

It was at this moment the group remembered they hadn't saved themselves.

Not really.

They ran forward, a desperate clump of Nerds and their families, every person watching.

Well. Not everyone.

Brett Bealer Jr. tried to wave to Tanisha. She flipped him off.

You could practically feel everyone holding their breath as Mr. Jones stared at the contract.

Aiah was emptying out Duncan's backpack. There was a huge gash in the side, and it now didn't have much in it.

Even as Mr. Jones was signing, Aiah started yelling.

"DON'T SIGN! NOBODY SIGN ANYTHING!"

A handful of gems glittered in one hand. Matilda's empty marble bag was grabbed in the other.

A contract was torn to shreds. 

The shreds were thrown into the air. 

In amongst a gleeful celebration, Duncan was picked up by Matilda and sort of whirled around. When they stopped whirling, they were both made very aware of how close their faces were. He kissed her cheek, and she almost dropped him.

A few minutes later, the officer pinched his brow and tried again.

"So. Robots…"

"Yes."

"And an ancient pirate ship-"

"Yes."

"And you all ended up.."

"How many times do we gotta tell it?"

"I thought this many of you would have come up with a better story, that's all."

"Well, how do you explain that, then?"

"How do I…oh."

A pirate ship sailed off gloriously. There wasn't anyone manning it. It went with the wind.

A robot, sparking and malfunctioning, scrambled up the beach, three mostly unharmed criminals over his shoulders.

The criminals were arrested. 

Chaz, fidgeting, asked Tanisha if she'd like to get a milkshake or something later that day. She responded by kissing him. He then asked her if that was a yes.

Ruby went to the edge of the rocks. She almost hurled the map into the sea. She didn't. 

It'd be a nice memento. 

She then just sat there. Watched the ship.

The rest of the Nerds joined her, watching, throwing arms around each other. Benjamin was even dragged along, sparking less and less as he dried.

A woman with blonde hair and a man with a cane, who the Nerds would call 'Benjamin's real mom and dad' would show up later that day to take him, but would let the Nerds say their goodbyes. 

"Thanks, One-Eyed Willy."

It wouldn't be the last time they were all together like this.

They would have many more adventures.

But for now, they watched this one sail away.


End file.
